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Baking

Timbales

A baked dish of ground chicken, brains, onions, lemon, butter, spices, eggs, and cracker crumbs in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Timbales

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the chicken until done and grind it fine.

  2. Cook the brains, mash well, and add to the chicken.

  3. Mix in onion, lemon juice, butter, celery salt, pepper, and salt.

  4. Beat the eggs separately and add to the chicken mixture with cracker crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease molds and fill them half full with the mixture.

  2. Place molds in a 400°F (200°C) oven and cook until brown.

  3. Turn out of molds while hot.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body so the filling holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Brains
Contribute a soft, creamy texture that blends into the filling.

The step that matters

Fill the molds only half full. Eggs expand and the mixture rises as it bakes, so overfilling can cause spillage and an uneven shape. Half-filling leaves room for the set custard-like mixture to rise and hold its form.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lemon, butter, celery, pepper, 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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