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Patties From Cold Turkey or Chickens

A patty made from minced cold turkey or chicken, ham, gravy or butter, cream, spices, wrapped in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Patties From Cold Turkey or Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the white meat from the turkey or chicken.

  2. Mix the minced meat with a little grated ham.

  3. Stew the mixture in good gravy or melted butter.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of cream and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and mace.

Shape and bake

  1. Prepare puff pastry and either bake the patties directly on parchment paper or in tin or earthenware pans.

  2. If using pans, the pastry will be more delicate.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

White meat from cooked turkey or chicken
Forms the main body of the filling and gives it its substance.
Good gravy or melted butter
Adds moisture and richness while the minced meat stews.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered casing that rises and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stewing the minced meat in gravy or butter. Minced white meat is lean and dries out easily. Stewing it gently in liquid fat or gravy keeps it moist and tender, so the filling does not turn dry or tough inside the pastry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, butter, cream, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, butter, cream, pepper. 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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