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Cream Chicken

A creamy chicken dish made with shredded chicken, cream, butter, flour, green peppers, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until thoroughly blended.

  3. Gradually add the cream, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the shredded chicken and green peppers.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and celery to taste.

  3. Serve on buttered toast or in patty shells.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness while forming the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Cream
Provides the liquid and fat that become the smooth, thick sauce.
Boiled chicken
Supplies the main protein, shredded so it blends evenly into the sauce.
Green peppers
Adds mild, fresh flavor and a tender texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cream, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Adding cream slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, butter, pepper, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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