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Chicken Loaf

A loaf made from boiled chicken, eggs, seasoning, and chicken broth, chilled and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,449 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Chicken Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until tender.

  2. Chop the boiled chicken finely.

Build the loaf

  1. Line a mold with the sliced hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Press the chopped chicken into the center of the mold.

  3. Season the chicken.

  4. Moisten it with the boiling liquor.

Chill and serve

  1. Refrigerate until cold.

  2. Slice the loaf.

  3. Serve.

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. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Egg + chickentop 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

Chicken
Forms the body of the loaf and, once chilled, holds together when sliced.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm sliced layers that show as a pattern when the loaf is cut.
Liquor from boiling the chicken
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the chopped meat.

The step that matters

Moisten it with the boiling liquor. Chopped cooked meat dries out easily. Adding hot broth lets the meat absorb liquid, and as it cools the gelatin in the broth helps bind the loaf so it slices cleanly.

“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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