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Mock Chicken

A baked bean-based dish shaped like chicken, topped with onion stuffing and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the bean mixture

  1. Rub the drained beans through a sieve and season them.

  2. Mix in the melted butter.

  3. Spread half of the bean mixture on a floured board.

  4. Place the onion stuffing on top.

  5. Cover with the remaining beans.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture.

  2. Brush the top with beaten egg.

  3. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan.

  4. Place the shaped mixture in the pan.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour, basting regularly.

  6. Make gravy using the fat from the pan and the water from cooking the beans.

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. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

  5. Beans + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the main body of the loaf, becoming a soft, sliceable mass when sieved.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture, and carries flavour through the mixture and pan.
Egg
Binds the surface when beaten and helps the top set and brown in the oven.
Onion
Provides aromatic flavour and moisture to the stuffing layer inside the loaf.

The step that matters

Basting regularly during baking. Basting spreads the butter and pan fat over the surface, keeping it moist and promoting even browning while the centre cooks through.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, egg. 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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