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Dessert

Creme De Volaille

A creamy chicken custard made with ground chicken, cream, butter, flour, eggs, onion juice, cayenne pepper, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Ohio. First Methodist Episcopal church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Creme De Volaille

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creme De Volaille

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cook one large chicken until tender.

  2. Remove all skin and bones, and grind the chicken three times. During the last grinding, add one can of mushrooms.

Make the custard

  1. Make a white sauce by combining one cup of cream, one tablespoon of butter, and one tablespoon of flour.

  2. Cook the sauce until thick, then pour it over the ground chicken.

  3. Add a large lump of butter and three or four eggs, one at a time.

  4. Season with a little onion juice, salt, cayenne pepper, and a little chopped parsley.

  5. Beat the mixture very hard and light before pouring it into a mold (one large mold or individual molds).

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the custard for two hours.

  2. Serve with champignon sauce.

By Hamilton, Ohio. First Methodist Episcopal church. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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 chicken mixture and set into a firm, sliceable custard when heated.
Cream
Forms the white sauce that adds richness and moisture to the chicken.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter into a white sauce that holds the chicken together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smooth flavor in the sauce and mixture.
Chicken
Forms the main body of the custard, providing protein and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture very hard and light before molding. Beating incorporates air into the mixture, which helps the custard steam up light and tender rather than dense. Eggs added one at a time blend in more evenly, reducing lumps and curdling.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, chicken, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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