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Molded Chicken

Chicken pieces set in a gelatin mold with eggs, pickles, and celery, served on lettuce with tartar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 104 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Molded Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken in salted water until tender.

  2. Let the chicken cool.

  3. Cut the chicken into pieces or strips of similar size.

  4. Ornament the bottom of a mold with slices of hard boiled eggs, pickles, truffles, or celery.

Make the jelly and fill the mold

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 3 cups of liquid to make a jelly.

  2. Pour a little jelly into the mold.

  3. Add the chicken to the mold.

  4. Add the eggs to the mold.

  5. Add the pickles to the mold.

  6. Add the other ingredients to the mold.

  7. Layer the ingredients as you go.

  8. Continue until the mold is filled with jelly and ingredients.

Serve

  1. Once congealed, turn the mold out onto lettuce leaves on a platter.

  2. Serve with tartar sauce.

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. Gelatin + saucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds the chicken and garnishes in shape.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, cooked until tender and set within the jelly.
Hard boiled eggs
Add a firm, mild texture and visual contrast when sliced through the jelly.
Pickles
Add acidity and a sharp contrast that cuts the richness of the chicken and jelly.

The step that matters

Let the jelly congeal before turning out. Gelatin sets only as it cools and firms. Turning the mold out too early can make the molded shape collapse or slump, so the jelly needs to be fully set first.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, truffle, gelatin, sauce):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, truffle, gelatin, sauce. 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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