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Creamed Chicken

A dish of cooked chicken mixed with thin white sauce, almonds, and egg yolk, served in timbales or on bread canapés.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Creamed Chicken

Why it works: Chicken and almond work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 838 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Creamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch and chop the almonds.

Make the creamed chicken

  1. Add the chopped almonds and the chicken cut into small pieces to the white sauce.

  2. Heat the mixture.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the egg yolk.

  4. Cook for a moment.

Serve

  1. Serve in Swedish Timbales or on bread canapés.

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 + almondtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together838 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + almondtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk, giving the dish its substance.
Thin white sauce
Supplies moisture and a creamy base that coats the chicken and keeps it tender.
Almonds
Add crunchy texture and a mild nutty flavour that contrasts with the smooth sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and adds richness as its proteins set gently with heat.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens the sauce through heat-set proteins. If the mixture is too hot or boils after it goes in, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy, so it is added just before serving and cooked only briefly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Almondthe original

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