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 ↓
Chicken Patties
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, combine cream and milk and heat until scalding hot.
Stir in flour and butter until smooth, then add to the hot milk.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Make and serve the patties
Prepare puff pastry and line the patty tins.
Bake the lined tins until golden brown.
Fill the baked pastry with the chicken mixture and serve hot.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Cream
- Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, full mouthfeel.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the flour thickens.
- Flour
- Thickens the hot milk as its starch swells and gelatinizes, giving the sauce body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth texture in the sauce.
- Puff pastry
- Its layers of fat and dough puff into flaky, crisp shells when baked.
- Boiled chicken
- Provides the main savory filling that the sauce binds together.
The step that matters
Stir in flour and butter until smooth. Flour that is not fully dispersed forms lumps that stay in the sauce. Stirring it smooth before it meets the hot milk lets the starch thicken the sauce evenly as it heats.
“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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