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Chicken Cream

A steamed custard made with minced chicken or rabbit, veal, egg, cream, and stock, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Chicken Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Mince the chicken or rabbit and veal flesh twice.

  2. Sieve the minced meat.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir.

  3. Gradually stir in the stock or milk to make a sauce.

  4. Let the sauce cool.

Finish the mixture

  1. Add the minced meat.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Mix in the egg and yolk.

  4. Gently fold in the whipped cream.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold or molds.

  2. Steam very slowly: large molds for 20-30 minutes, small molds for about 10 minutes.

  3. Serve coated with a good sauce such as béchamel, Dutch, or velouté.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Chicken or rabbit
Provides the main body and flavour of the mousse-like filling.
Egg and egg yolk
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable texture when steamed.
Double cream
Adds richness and a light, tender texture once whipped and folded in.
Butter
Enriches the flour-thickened base and adds flavour.
Flour
Thickens the stock or milk into a sauce that gives the mixture body.
Veal flesh
Adds fine, smooth meat texture to the minced filling.

The step that matters

Steam very slowly. High heat or rapid boiling can make the egg-set mixture curdle, honeycomb or turn rubbery. Gentle steam lets the eggs set evenly and keeps the custard-like texture smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, veal, butter, cream, flour, 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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