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Baked Chicken Tamale

A baked dish of cornmeal dough filled with chicken, tomatoes, olives, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Chicken Tamale

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.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the cornmeal with 1 cup of boiling water.

  2. Add the butter, onion juice, tomatoes, salad oil, chicken, olives, ketchup, cayenne, and salt. Mix well.

Bake

  1. Transfer to a buttered dish.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the starchy base that thickens into a soft, sliceable body when scalded and baked.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory bulk of the filling.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that give the filling a juicy, tangy character.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavor and a firm texture to the filling.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness, acidity and color to the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, tomato, olive, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, tomato, olive, ketchup, pepper. 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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