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Creamed Chicken

Baked chicken with sweetbreads, mushrooms, and cream, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Creamed Chicken

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 ↓

Creamed 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

  1. Allow the cooked chicken and sweetbreads to cool, then chop the sweetbreads finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir until dissolved.

  3. Gradually add the heated cream, stirring until thickened.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then mix in the chicken and sweetbreads.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish, top with bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Garnish with parsley 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the dish and provides the main substance of the creamed filling.
Sweetbreads
Adds a tender, rich texture to the creamed filling.
Butter
Enriches the flavor and, with flour, forms the base of the thickened sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Cream
Creates the smooth, rich sauce that binds the filling together.

The step that matters

Gradually add the heated cream, stirring until thickened. Adding cream slowly while stirring lets the flour starch disperse evenly and swell, preventing lumps and yielding a smooth, thick sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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