Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Pudding

A baked dish of chicken pieces mixed with a batter of eggs, milk, butter, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a saucepan and cover with water. Boil until tender.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then simmer for 10-15 minutes.

  3. Remove the chicken from the broth and take out the large bones.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. Place the chicken meat in a well-buttered pudding dish and season again if needed. Add a few bits of butter.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix with milk, melted butter, salt, and baking powder. Add enough sifted flour to create a batter similar to griddle-cakes.

  3. Pour the batter over the chicken in the pudding dish. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Use the remaining broth, adding flour mixed with melted butter. Boil and add water if necessary.

  2. Serve the gravy in a boat alongside the pudding.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard-like pudding when baked.
Sifted flour
Gives the batter body so it bakes into a soft, cake-like structure around the chicken.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light in texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the batter and helping it brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and keeps the dish from sticking and the top moist.

The step that matters

Bake the pudding at the stated heat. The batter must set around the chicken without drying out. Too hot an oven can overbrown or toughen the eggs before the centre sets, while too cool an oven leaves it soggy and slow to firm.

“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