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Potted Chicken

A dish of boiled chicken set in a seasoned jelly with eggs and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potted Chicken

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens until the meat can be pulled from the bones.

  2. Remove the meat and continue boiling the bones to make a jelly.

Make the potted chicken

  1. The next day, cut the meat into pieces and add it to the melted jelly.

  2. Stir in catsup, coarse sea salt, allspice, cloves, and mace.

  3. Chop the hard boiled eggs and slice the lemon, then add them to the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into round dishes or molds and let it cool.

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.

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.

  1. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat and, through long boiling, the bones that release the gelatin for the jelly.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, sliced texture to the set mixture.
Lemon
Adds acidity and fresh aroma that balance the rich, spiced meat.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity along with a tomato-based color and flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the bones to make the jelly. The bones must simmer long enough to draw out collagen, which turns into gelatin as the broth cools. Without enough gelatin the mixture will not set firmly when chilled.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, allspice, clove, egg, lemon. 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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