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Creamed Chicken and Potatoes

A creamy chicken and potato dish with celery, butter, flour, stock, and egg, served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper 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 ↓

Creamed Chicken and Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Boil celery in just enough water to cover until tender.

  2. In a saucepan, melt butter and flour together to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add hot stock or milk, stirring until smooth.

  4. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine celery, chicken, and potatoes with the sauce.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg just before serving.

  3. Pour over hot buttered toast and serve.

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

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

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock or milk into a smooth, creamy sauce when cooked with the butter.
Stock or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and moisture.
Egg
Adds richness and helps thicken the sauce when stirred in at the end.
Potatoes
Add soft, starchy bulk that absorbs some of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg just before serving. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding it to a hot sauce can curdle or scramble it. Adding it last, off the heat or at low heat, keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

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