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Chicken Pudding

A baked dish of chicken in a batter of eggs, milk, flour, and butter, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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.

Poach the chicken

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

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Boil until tender.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.

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

Make the batter and bake

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs.

  3. Mix the beaten eggs with milk, melted butter, salt, and baking powder.

  4. Add enough sifted flour to create a batter similar to griddle-cakes.

  5. Pour the batter over the chicken in the pudding dish.

  6. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, combine the remaining broth with flour stirred into melted butter.

  2. Let the gravy boil, adding more water if needed.

  3. Serve the gravy hot in a gravy boat.

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 pudding as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and turns light rather than dense.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure and thickens the gravy when stirred into melted butter.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter and helps it bake to a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and thickens the gravy as a roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, then simmer. The chicken must be fully tender before baking, because the oven only sets the batter and will not soften tough meat. Gentle simmering keeps the meat moist instead of stringy.

“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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