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Chicken Pate

A chilled chicken pâté made with simmered chicken, eggs, optional ham or bacon, lemon, and spices, set in a mold and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Pate

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the isinglass in water.

  2. Cut the chicken as for a fricassee and cover with water; simmer until the meat easily comes off the bones.

  3. Slice the hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Return the chicken bones to the kettle and simmer to enrich the jelly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Wet a plain mold and line it with thin slices of lemon and egg.

  2. Layer the mold with chicken, egg, and small bits of ham, bacon, or pork, adding slices of lemon.

  3. Season the gravy with salt, pepper, and mace or nutmeg, then add the dissolved isinglass.

  4. Pour the mixture over the layered chicken and cover with a crust or tin cover.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350 °F (175 °C) for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve cold the following day.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Dissolved in the gravy, it gels the liquid so the pâté sets firm when cold.
Chicken
Provides the main meat, which is cooked until tender and then layered into the mold.
Eggs
Sliced hard-boiled eggs add structure and visible layers inside the set pâté.
Lemon
Thin slices add acidity and a bright, fresh flavour that cuts the richness of the meat.
Chicken bones
Simmered again to make a richer gravy that gives the jelly more body and flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved isinglass to the seasoned gravy. Isinglass is a gelatin-like protein that only sets when the liquid is warm enough to dissolve it and then cools. Adding it to a gravy that is too hot or too thin can leave the pâté soft, while too little gives a weak set.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, pepper, ham, lemon, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, pepper, ham, lemon, mushroom. 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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