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Chicken with Asparagus

A chicken dish cooked with asparagus, butter, stock, and a sweet milk and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken with Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Salt the chicken pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a pot until it bubbles, then add the chicken and pepper, turning the pieces once.

Cook

  1. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the asparagus tips.

  3. Cover the pot and place it in the Caloric for 2 hours.

Thicken and serve

  1. Before serving, mix the flour with sweet milk, add to the pot, and bring to a boil.

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

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

  2. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + asparagustop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein; slow covered cooking keeps the meat moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor as it browns lightly in the pot.
Stock
Supplies liquid for gentle moist cooking and adds savory flavor to the sauce.
Asparagus tips
Adds tender texture and a fresh, green vegetable flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce when brought to a boil.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and sweet milk. Flour must be mixed smoothly with the milk before it goes into the boiling pot; added dry or in lumps it clumps and leaves a grainy sauce. Bringing it to a boil fully activates the starch so the sauce thickens.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

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