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Chicken Timbale

A baked chicken and egg custard served with a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Timbale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the timbale

  1. Chop the chicken meat using a meat chopper until finely minced.

  2. In a bowl, beat in the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated.

  3. Add salt, pepper, celery salt, and mushrooms (if using) to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the heavy cream until well combined.

  5. Grease a mold with butter and decorate with slices of hard-boiled egg or truffles.

  6. Pour the chicken mixture into the mold and cover with buttered paper.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pan of hot water and cook until the center feels firm, about 30 to 45 minutes. Do not let the water boil during cooking.

  2. For the sauce, cook chicken bones in cold water, seasoned with soup seasonings, for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the stock to reduce to 1 cup, then mix with ½ cup cream thickened with flour and melted butter.

  4. Season the sauce to taste and pour around the timbale when serving.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Celery + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main structure and body of the timbale when finely minced and set by gentle heat.
Eggs
Coagulate on gentle heating, setting the mixture into a firm, sliceable custard-like texture.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the set mixture tender rather than dry.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture to give the sauce body.

The step that matters

Keep the water below a boil during cooking. Proteins in eggs and chicken set gently; boiling water or high heat makes them tighten quickly, producing a rubbery, curdled, or porous texture instead of a smooth, tender custard.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, egg, pepper, mushroom, cream, butter. 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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