Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Chicken Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the chicken
Stew the chickens until thoroughly cooked.
Remove the chicken from the broth and place it in a baking dish.
Make the batter and bake
In a bowl, mix the flour, sweet milk, melted butter, and beaten eggs until well combined.
Pour the batter over the chicken in the baking dish.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.
Make the sauce
For the sauce, thicken the reserved broth with flour, and season with butter, salt, and pepper to taste.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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 batter and help it set into a firm, custard-like pudding when baked.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter so it holds together, and thickens the broth for the sauce.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and richness to the batter, helping it bake tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and flavour in the batter and the sauce.
The step that matters
Thoroughly cooking the chickens. Chicken must reach a safe internal temperature before it goes into the dish, since the batter bakes only until set and will not fully cook the meat.
“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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