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Salmi of Chicken

A chicken stew with mushrooms, gravy, sherry, and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Salmi of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the chicken

  1. Fry the chicken joints in the butter until browned.

  2. Place the chicken in a stew pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with the brown stock.

  2. Add salt, pepper, gravy coloring, and mushroom ketchup to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into the frying pan and bring to a boil.

  4. Strain the sauce into the stew pan with the chicken.

Stew

  1. Add the mushrooms and stew gently for one hour.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the sherry.

Serve

  1. Arrange the chicken on a serving dish, place mushrooms in the center, and pour gravy around.

  2. Garnish with lemon and pastry.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which browns in butter and becomes tender during gentle stewing.
Butter
Fat that carries the flavor and browns the chicken joints.
Flour
Starch that thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich sauce when heated.
Brown stock
Liquid base that gives the sauce its savory flavor and moisture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and soft texture as they stew in the sauce.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a sharp, winey note stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour smoothly into the stock. Flour clumps when it meets hot liquid unless its starch is first dispersed in cold or room-temperature stock. Whisking it smooth beforehand lets the starch thicken the sauce evenly without lumps.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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