Why it works: Egg and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,991 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Chicken Custards for Six
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the custard
Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.
Add the chicken broth and mix well.
Pass the mixture through a sieve into custard cups.
Steam and serve
Steam the cups like a cabinet pudding, ensuring the heat is not too high to prevent curdling.
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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Egg + chickentop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Set the custard and give it a rich, smooth texture as they cook.
- Chicken broth
- Provides the liquid base and savory flavor that the egg yolks set into.
The step that matters
Steaming at a gentle heat. Egg proteins set as they warm, but high heat makes them tighten too fast and squeeze out water, causing curdling. Keeping the steam gentle lets the custard set evenly and stay smooth.
“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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