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Timbales of Egg and Chicken

A baked dish of chicken and egg in molded custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Timbales of Egg and Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the chicken base

  1. In a saucepan, combine chopped chicken and enough stock to prevent scorching. Heat gently.

  2. Stir in corn starch mixed with milk and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat, beat in egg white, and spread mixture on a dish to cool until stiff.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter your timbale molds and line them with the chicken mixture.

  2. Place an egg yolk in the center of each mold, season with salt and pepper, and add a small piece of butter.

  3. Set molds in a pan of boiling water in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) and cover closely. Cook for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Invert onto small hot plates and top each timbale with a spoonful of egg sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the timbale once chopped and set.
Corn starch
Thickens the chicken mixture so it holds its shape when cooled and molded.
Egg white
Beaten in to add structure as the mixture sets and stiffens.
Egg yolk
Sets in the center of each mold, giving a rich, soft filling.
Chicken stock
Moistens the chicken so it heats gently without scorching.

The step that matters

Cooling the chicken mixture until stiff. The mixture must cool until firm enough to hold its shape when lined into molds. Starch thickens as it cooks, but the egg white needs to be fully incorporated and the mixture cooled, so that the timbale does not slump or collapse when inverted.

“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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