Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Roly-poly

A rolled pastry filled with seasoned minced chicken, veal, or mutton, steamed and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Roly-poly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add to the dry ingredients.

  3. Roll out the mixture to ½ inch thick.

Fill and shape

  1. Spread the minced meat evenly over the dough and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Roll the dough over the filling tightly.

  3. Place the rolled dough on a buttered plate.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 30 minutes.

  2. Slice and serve with gravy.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure, giving the roll its body once steamed.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to help it rise.
Baking soda
Produces carbon dioxide gas when combined with acid, lightening the dough as it steams.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the dough.
Minced chicken, veal, or mutton
Provides the savory filling and its fat keeps the roll moist as it steams.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough over the filling tightly. Loose rolling leaves gaps and air pockets around the filling, so the roll can separate or cook unevenly during steaming. A snug, even roll helps the filling cook through and keeps the slices holding together.

“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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes