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Steamed Chicken, Stuffed

A whole chicken steamed with a breadcrumb and oyster stuffing, served with a creamy oyster gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Steamed Chicken, Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Prepare a stuffing by mixing bread crumbs with pepper, salt, and butter, then add the oysters.

  2. Stuff the chicken with the mixture and bind the legs and wings with tape.

Steam the chicken

  1. Place the chicken in a steamer with a tightly fitting lid or in a tin pail covered with a good lid.

  2. Set the pail in a pot of cold water and heat gradually to a boil.

  3. If the chicken is full-grown, cook for 2 hours after boiling begins.

  4. After 2 hours, check the breast with a fork; if tender, remove the chicken and keep it covered.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid into a saucepan, then stir in 2 tablespoons of butter, 4 tablespoons of oyster liquor, and a mixture of flour, cream, and parsley.

  2. Bring the gravy to a boil, quickly stir in the beaten egg, season to taste, and pour some over the chicken, serving the rest in a separate dish.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the stuffing and enriches the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the chicken rather than running off.
Cream
Adds body and smoothness to the gravy.
Beaten egg
Sets gently into the hot gravy, giving it a thicker, silkier body.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing and the oyster liquor gravy.
Bread crumbs
Soak up juices and give the stuffing a light, moist body.

The step that matters

Quickly stirring the beaten egg into the gravy. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the gravy is not stirred vigorously as the egg goes in, it can scramble into lumps instead of thickening it smoothly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, pepper, butter, oyster, flour, cream. 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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