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Chicken Tarts

A puff pastry filled with chicken, gravy, pepper, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a rich puff pastry.

  2. Chop the chicken and any other meats you wish to use.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chicken, pepper, and butter.

  2. Add salt to taste while cooking for better flavor.

  3. Pour in the gravy and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the pastry and line small pans with it.

  2. Fill the pastry with the chicken mixture and bake until the gravy is well mixed with the chicken.

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. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meaty filling and the main savoury flavour of the tarts.
Rich gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the filling does not dry out in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the filling taste rounded and smooth.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding salt while cooking. Salt is easiest to judge in small amounts during cooking, and it draws out and carries the flavour of the chicken and gravy. Seasoning only at the end can leave the filling bland or unevenly salted.

“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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