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Deviled Chicken

A savory chicken dish with cream, butter, breadcrumbs, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, cream, chicken, and seasonings.

  3. Stir over heat until it boils.

  4. Add the chopped hard-boiled eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill paper cases or individual dishes with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives it its main body.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness so the filling stays soft and creamy.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, slightly crumbly texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the mixture and help the top brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the pan before the other ingredients go in.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until it boils. Cream can scorch or separate if it is overheated or left unattended on the heat. Stirring keeps it even and lets the bread crumbs thicken the mixture into a spreadable filling.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, butter, egg, bread, nutmeg, pepper. 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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