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Chicken Tamales

Chicken tamales made with leftover chicken, enchilada sauce, eggs, olives, raisins, cornmeal mush, and corn husks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,888 recipes. Both carry acetic acid hexyl ester, which smells sweet, green. The science ↓

Chicken Tamales

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare the enchilada sauce.

  2. Boil the leftover chicken, then chop it finely.

  3. Stir the chicken into the sauce along with the eggs, olives, and raisins.

Assemble the tamales

  1. Prepare boiling cornmeal mush.

  2. Spread a soaked corn husk out and layer it with a thin cover of mush.

  3. Add a layer of the chicken sauce mixture, then another layer of mush.

  4. Cover with another corn husk and tie securely.

  5. Place in a steamer over boiling water to keep hot.

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 + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  2. Olive + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,502 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + olivetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the chicken and sauce mixture so it holds together when cooked.
Cornmeal mush
Forms the tender, starchy dough wrapper around the filling.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavour that contrasts with the sweet raisins.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness that balance the savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Spreading the cornmeal mush. Mush spread too thickly stays dense and gummy when steamed, while a thin, even layer cooks through and holds the filling. Keep the mush warm and spreadable so it does not stiffen before wrapping.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, sauce, egg, olive, corn):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sauce, egg, olive, corn. 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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