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Potted Chicken and Bacon

A preserved mixture of roasted chicken, bacon, herbs, and butter, formed into a smooth paste and stored in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potted Chicken and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Roast the chicken until fully cooked.

  2. While hot, remove all the meat from the bones and chop it.

Make the broth

  1. Place the broken bones in a saucepan with 3 cups of water, herbs, mace, and seasoning.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

Bacon and potting

  1. Cook the bacon until crispy.

  2. In a mortar, combine the chopped chicken and bacon, and pound until smooth.

  3. Add the butter and 1 tablespoon of the broth, mix well.

  4. Press the mixture into a jar and cover with melted butter.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Chicken + thymetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,173 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Provides the main body of the potted mixture once chopped and pounded smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that sets the potted mixture and seals the top in the jar.
Bacon
Contributes savory, smoky fat and flavor to the chicken mixture.
Broth (in the method)
Adds moisture and body, loosening the mixture so it pounds into a spreadable texture.

The step that matters

Pounding the chicken and bacon until smooth. Breaking the meat into fine pieces and working in the fat creates a smooth, spreadable texture. Adding the butter and broth afterward keeps the mixture moist and cohesive rather than crumbly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, thyme, 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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