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Chicken “a LA Champenoise

A chicken dish of roasted chicken pieces stewed with ham, mushrooms, gherkins, anchovies and gravy, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken “a LA Champenoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. In a saucepan, cook the ham over medium heat until nearly done.

  2. Remove the ham and chop into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the chopped ham, carrot, mushrooms, and butter to the same saucepan.

  2. Sprinkle with flour.

  3. Add white wine and gravy.

  4. Stew together and skim carefully.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the roasted chicken, gherkins, parsley, and anchovies.

  2. Toss gently without boiling.

  3. Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice and serve.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mushroom + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the whole sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor from the vegetables and ham.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce.
Gherkins
Add sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
Anchovies
Add deep savory flavor that rounds out the sauce without tasting fishy.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that lifts the flavors at the end.

The step that matters

Toss gently without boiling. Boiling the sauce once the chicken is added toughens the meat and can make the sauce break or turn grainy. Gentle heat keeps the chicken tender and the sauce smooth.

“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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