Why it works: Chicken and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,991 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Chicken Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
In a bowl, mix the chicken broth, egg yolks, and salt until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a custard kettle.
Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.
Serve
Serve in custard cups.
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.
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Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Proteins set as they heat, thickening the broth into a custard.
- Chicken broth
- Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken.
The step that matters
Cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolk proteins thicken the mixture as they heat, but too much heat or too little stirring can overcook them, curdling the custard into lumps and scrambled bits. Gentle, constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so it thickens smoothly.
“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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