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Steamed Chicken

A whole chicken steamed and served with white sauce and optional rice or celery stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Steamed Chicken

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Steamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the chicken and wrap it in cheese cloth.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the chicken for 20 minutes per pound plus an additional 20 minutes.

  2. Carefully unwrap the chicken and remove the skewers.

  3. Place the chicken on a platter.

  4. Mix the beaten egg yolks into the white sauce and pour it over the chicken.

  5. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  6. If desired, stuff the chicken with well-seasoned cooked rice or cooked celery.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Parsley + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + ricetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,936 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the main protein that cooks through gently during steaming.
Egg yolks
Thicken the white sauce and add richness when stirred in and cooked gently.
Rich white sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy coating over the cooked chicken.

The step that matters

Mixing the egg yolks into the white sauce. Egg yolks thicken sauces by setting with gentle heat. If the sauce is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and leave the sauce grainy, so temper them first and keep the heat low.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cheese, sauce, egg, rice):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cheese, sauce, egg, rice. 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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