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Fillets of Chicken with Forcemeat

A stuffed chicken fillet entree made from one chicken, served eight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Kaufman, Nettie M · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fillets of Chicken with Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Remove the fillets with care to avoid separating the mignon and large fillets.

  2. Cut each side lengthwise into four fillets.

  3. Bat each fillet to a uniform thickness with a broad knife wet in cold water.

  4. Dispose the fillets in a buttered agate pan, sprinkle with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

  5. Cover with buttered paper and cook about five minutes in a moderate oven, then press under a light weight until cold.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Free the meat, taken from the first and second joints, of skin and sinew.

  2. To each half pound of meat add four ounces of panada, one ounce of butter, salt and white pepper, and pound in a mortar to a smooth paste.

  3. Add meanwhile two raw eggs; when well blended press through a sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread this to a depth of half an inch over the fillets, smooth the tops and edges with a knife wet in hot water and trim the fillets into shape if needed.

  2. Put into a buttered sauté pan, add two tablespoons of sherry wine and set into the oven for about fifteen minutes or until firm to the touch.

  3. Dispose the fillets on a border of forcemeat or potato and fill the center with a ragout of button mushrooms and chicken quenelles, or of peas or asparagus in a rich sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

310Calories
32 gProtein
15 gFat
6 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Chicken100g cooked165
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Meatnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Kaufman, Nettie M. 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.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the forcemeat and help it set firm when baked.
Panada
Adds moisture and body, keeping the forcemeat light and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the forcemeat and helps it stay smooth.
Sherry wine
Adds aromatic flavour and acidity to the liquid in the pan.

The step that matters

Baking the forcemeat-covered fillets. Cook only until the forcemeat is firm to the touch. Egg proteins set as they heat, so overbaking can make the forcemeat dry and rubbery, while underbaking leaves it soft and unset.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, chicken, egg, sherry, wine, pepper):

  1. Grapefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, chicken, egg, sherry, wine, 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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