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Patties From Cold Turkey or Chickens

Patties made from minced cold turkey or chicken mixed with ham, gravy, cream, and spices, wrapped in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Patties From Cold Turkey or Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the white part of the cooked turkey or chicken and mix it with the grated ham.

  2. Stew the mixture in good gravy or melted butter.

  3. Add the cream and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and mace.

Bake the patties

  1. Prepare puff pastry and bake the patties directly on paper or in tin or earthenware pans.

  2. For a delicate pastry, use pans; otherwise, bake the pastry separately and place the meat on top.

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

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

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Turkey + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

White part of cooked turkey or chicken
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it a tender, meaty texture.
Good gravy or melted butter
Adds moisture and fat so the minced meat stays soft while it stews.
Grated ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered case that rises and crisps when baked.

The step that matters

Baking the pastry in pans versus separately. Puff pastry rises through steam trapped between its layers. Baking it directly in a pan supports a delicate shape, while baking it separately and topping it with meat lets the pastry crisp fully without becoming soggy from the moist filling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, butter, cream, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, butter, cream, pepper. 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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