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Chicken Saute

A sautéed chicken served in a creamy mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Saute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Separate the chicken and remove the pin feathers.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then roll in flour.

  3. Brown the chicken in salt-pork fat in a stew pan.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and add the chopped onion; fry for five minutes.

  2. Stir in the flour and brown it.

  3. Slowly add the milk and white stock, seasoning with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the chicken and cook until tender.

  2. Add the mushrooms and cook for an additional ten minutes before serving.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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, which becomes tender as it simmers in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the chicken and thickens the sauce when browned in butter.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour as the base for the sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the sauce along with the stock.
White stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a soft texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and stock to the flour. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the browned flour from clumping. Smooth dispersion lets starch hydrate evenly and thicken the sauce into a uniform, silky texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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