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Creamed Chicken

Creamed chicken is a dish of shredded chicken cooked in a butter‑flour sauce with stock, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Creamed Chicken

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, salt, celery salt, and cayenne pepper until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the chicken stock and milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cooked chicken and parsley, mixing well.

  2. Serve in Swedish timbales, patty shells, or a potato border.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Melts with the flour to form the base of the sauce, adding richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, creamy sauce as it cooks.
Chicken stock
Provides the liquid that turns the roux into a flowing sauce, adding savoury flavour.
Milk
Adds body and a mild sweetness to the sauce, making it creamy.
Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, held together by the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the chicken stock and milk, stirring constantly until thickened. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps. Constant stirring keeps the starch from clumping at the bottom of the pan.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, pepper, butter, milk, parsley. 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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