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Chicken Pates

A savory chicken pâté made with diced chicken, truffle, butter, and a sauce of milk, flour, spices, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 ingredients
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Chicken Pates

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Pates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Take the white meat of one large tender chicken from the soup pot in which it is boiled as soon as it is tender.

  2. Cut the chicken into small dice, and leave in a cool place else it will soon dry.

Make the sauce

  1. In ½ pint of milk, mix smoothly 1 oz sifted flour, a shake of red pepper, a pinch of salt, the same of nutmeg, a piece of mace one inch square, a small piece of onion, a little bunch of parsley, and a piece of butter the size of an egg.

  2. Let the mixture boil for fifteen minutes.

  3. Add the beaten yolk of an egg.

  4. If it gets too thick, thin with cream.

  5. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve.

Combine and serve

  1. Chop up one truffle and mix it with the chicken.

  2. Put the chicken and sauce in a saucepan together, and make very hot.

  3. Pour the mixture into puff pastry shells, with a thin slice of truffle on the top of each.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

408Calories
39 gProtein
21 gFat
13 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 11 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Chicken100g cooked165
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0
Soupnot in our table0
Trufflenot 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 Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and texture of the pâté filling.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the chicken.
Butter
Adds richness and helps give the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce as it is added to the hot mixture.
Milk (in the method)
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the chicken.
Truffle
Adds a distinctive earthy aroma to the chicken and the topping.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if the sauce is too hot when it is added, the yolk can scramble and leave the sauce grainy. Remove the pan from direct heat or keep it gentle before stirring it in.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, egg, chicken, truffle, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, egg, chicken, truffle, pepper, nutmeg. 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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