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Chicken Pudding

A baked dish of stewed chicken layered with a flour‑milk‑egg batter and served with a boiled egg in the gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Season the cut‑up chickens with salt, pepper, mace, and nutmeg.

  2. Melt the butter in a pot.

  3. Add enough water to cover the chickens.

  4. Stew the chickens gently until half cooked.

  5. Remove the chickens and let them cool.

  6. Pour off the gravy.

  7. Reserve the gravy for serving.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour gradually with the milk in a bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and a little salt to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer some chicken in a deep dish.

  2. Pour over some batter.

  3. Add another layer of chicken and more batter.

  4. Repeat layering until the dish is full.

  5. Ensure the top layer is batter.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until brown.

Serve

  1. Break an egg into the reserved gravy.

  2. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  3. Serve in a sauceboat with the pudding.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Flour
Thickens the milk batter so it holds around the chicken pieces as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the batter, adding moisture and softness to the pudding.
Chickens
Provide the meat that the batter sets around, giving the pudding its savory body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and browning to the cooking chicken.

The step that matters

Baking until brown without overcooking. Egg-based batters set as proteins coagulate with heat. Baking too long or at too high a heat makes the eggs curdle and turn rubbery, so the pudding should be removed once set and browned.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, milk, egg. 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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