Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Custard

A baked custard made with chicken, stock, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,330 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Chicken Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Force the finely chopped chicken through a sieve.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chicken, stock, egg, and seasonings.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a shallow pan to a depth of ¼ inch.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven in a water bath until firm.

  3. Cool, remove from the mold, and cut into ¼ inch cubes.

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. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + anchovytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Chicken + anchovytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the chicken and sets into a firm custard when baked.
Chicken stock
Adds moisture and liquid that the egg sets into a tender custard.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main body and flavour of the custard.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until firm. Gentle, indirect heat from the water bath keeps the egg custard from overheating, which would make it curdle, weep, or turn rubbery. Bake only until set so it stays smooth and tender.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, anchovy. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes