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Chicken Mould

A molded chicken dish made with boiled chicken, eggs, butter, celery, salt, pepper, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Bone and finely chop the chicken.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, drawn butter, and celery.

Mould and serve

  1. Slice the hard boiled eggs and line a dish or bowl with them.

  2. Pour the prepared chicken into the dish, adding broth if necessary to moisten.

  3. Once cold, turn out of the mold and slice for serving.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the mould and provides the main texture and protein.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the chicken hold together and taste rich.
Hard boiled eggs
Form a sliced lining that gives the mould a visible, firm structure when turned out.
Broth
Moistens the chopped chicken so the mould stays juicy rather than dry.

The step that matters

Adding broth to moisten. Finely chopped cooked chicken dries out easily. Adding just enough broth keeps it moist, and the mould needs to be cold before it is turned out so it holds its shape when sliced.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter, egg. 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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