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Chicken a LA Creme

A creamy chicken dish with ham, mushrooms, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,171 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the cream until stiff.

  2. Add the minced chicken or veal, ham, mushrooms, and seasonings. Mix well and add the scalded, finely minced parsley.

Serve

  1. Pile the mixture in the center of a dish.

  2. Garnish with a thick border of green salad.

  3. Sprinkle minced parsley and lobster coral on top.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,171 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cream + lobstertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Chicken + hamtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,578 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whipped into stiff peaks, it gives the mixture a light, airy body.
Chicken or veal
Provides the main protein and the substance of the dish.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor that contrasts with the mild cream.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and a soft, moist texture.

The step that matters

Beat the cream until stiff. Cream whips best when cold and beaten only until it holds firm peaks. Overbeating turns it grainy and can cause it to separate into butter, which would collapse the airy structure of the mixture.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, mushroom, pepper, cream, lobster):

  1. Celerybetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, mushroom, pepper, cream, lobster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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