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Chicken Custard

A custard made with chicken broth, beaten eggs, and optional thickeners.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and arrowroot work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 71 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Chicken Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the chicken broth until warm.

  2. In a bowl, whisk the beaten eggs and gradually add the warm broth, stirring constantly.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. If desired, thicken with arrowroot, boiled flour, or gelatin.

Serve

  1. Serve cold or warm, with or without additional thickened broth.

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. Chicken + arrowroottop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Egg + gelatintop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Arrowroot + gelatintop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + arrowroottop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when gently heated, giving the custard its body and creamy structure.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base and supplies the main savory chicken flavour.
Arrowroot or boiled flour
Thickens the liquid optionally, giving it a more viscous texture.
Gelatin
Thickens the liquid optionally, helping it hold a softer set when cooled.

The step that matters

Adding the warm broth to the eggs. Pouring warm broth into beaten eggs while whisking constantly tempers them, so the eggs do not scramble into lumps and the mixture stays smooth.

Swap the arrowroot

The recipe marks arrowroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, gelatin):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, gelatin. 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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