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Cream Chicken Forcemeat

A creamy forcemeat made from chicken breast and wings, blended with egg white, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Chicken Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove skin and fat from the chicken and wings.

  2. Scrape the meat to free it from sinews.

  3. Pound the scraped meat in a mortar to a paste.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Gradually incorporate the egg white while pounding.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve in small amounts.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Set the bowl on cracked ice.

  5. Slowly stir in the thick cream until consistent.

  6. Test by dropping a half teaspoon in hot water.

  7. Adjust thickness with more cream or egg white as needed.

  8. The sample should poach for 10 minutes and be smooth and firm when cut.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or turkey breast
Provides the lean protein that forms the bulk and body of the forcemeat.
Egg white
Binds the meat proteins so the forcemeat sets firm when poached.
Thick cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the forcemeat a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture cold while adding cream. Cream must be stirred in over cracked ice so the fat stays emulsified; if the mixture warms, the fat separates and the forcemeat turns grainy and loose.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, egg, pepper, cream. 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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