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Chicken Timbales

A baked chicken dish shaped in timbale molds, combined with butter, breadcrumbs, cream, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Timbales

six timbale moulds

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the mixture

  1. Press the chopped chicken through a colander.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the bread crumbs and cream. Heat until hot, then stir in the chicken, salt, pepper, cayenne, onion juice, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Mix thoroughly, remove from heat, and fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill six well-buttered timbale moulds two-thirds full.

  2. Place the moulds in a pan with about an inch of water, cover with buttered paper, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

  3. Serve with mushroom or velouté sauce.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the mixture and whites, beaten stiff, lighten it and help it set and rise.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and cream to give the mixture body and a soft, tender structure.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the timbales soft and tender after baking.
Cold boiled chicken
Provides the main protein and savoury flavour that forms the body of the timbales.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the timbales light and risen. Vigorous stirring knocks out that air, and the timbales come out dense and flat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, bread, cream, pepper, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, bread, cream, pepper, egg. 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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