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Chicken and Ham Puppine

A baked pudding made with chicken, ham, macaroni, eggs, butter, flour, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken and Ham Puppine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut up the chicken and lemon.

Cook

  1. Boil the chicken with flour.

  2. Add minced ham and macaroni to the chicken broth.

  3. Heat and cook the macaroni until tender.

  4. Mix well with ham, chicken, beaten eggs, butter, and seasoning.

  5. Pour into a greased pudding mold and cover tightly.

  6. Boil for two hours.

  7. Invert the mold to turn it out.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the main body of the pudding and supplies flavor through its broth.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, giving the pudding its firm structure.
Flour
Thickens the chicken broth so the mixture holds together rather than running loose.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and chew, absorbing liquid as it cooks until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Ham
Contributes salty, savory flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Mix well with ham, chicken, beaten eggs, butter, and seasoning.. Eggs set when heated, so they must be evenly distributed through the mixture. Uneven mixing leaves pockets that set unevenly and give a patchy texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, ham, egg, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, ham, egg, butter. 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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