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Cream Chicken

Cream Chicken is a baked chicken dish with a cream sauce, mushrooms, and bread topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Cream Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken and sweetbreads until cooked, then let them cool and cut into pieces.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the cream over medium heat.

  2. In another saucepan, melt the butter, then add the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Pour the hot cream into the butter and flour mixture, stirring until it thickens.

  4. Add the grated onion, nutmeg, black pepper, and red pepper to the sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, combine the chicken, cream sauce, and mushrooms (cut if large).

  2. Top with grated bread and dot with butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 20 minutes until golden.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Forms the roux with flour and adds richness to the sauce and topping.
Cream
Provides the liquid base and richness of the sauce.
Sweetbreads
Supply tender, rich meat that becomes soft through cooking.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a soft, moist texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the hot cream into the butter and flour mixture, stirring until it thickens. Adding hot liquid to a roux while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, cream, butter, flour, nutmeg, pepper. 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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