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Timbale

A baked dish of diced chicken, mushrooms, and sweetbreads layered with cream sauce and topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Timbale

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the chickens until tender, then cut the white meat and a little dark meat into dice.

  2. In a saucepan, simmer the cream with the onion, mace, salt, and pepper over low heat.

  3. Thicken the cream by stirring in the butter and flour to form a roux until it reaches the consistency of thick cream.

  4. Stew the French mushrooms in the stock for about an hour, until the liquid reduces to less than half.

  5. Boil the sweetbreads until tender, then cut them into dice.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a large dish and layer the chicken, mushrooms, and sweetbreads in that order.

  2. Pour some of the thickened cream over the layers and repeat until the dish is filled.

  3. Scatter bread crumbs and small bits of butter on top.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main body of the filling, cooked until tender and diced.
Cream
Forms the thickened sauce that moistens and binds the layers.
Flour
Thickens the cream with butter as a roux, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Enriches the roux and sauce with fat, adding richness and flavor.
Sweetbreads
Add tender, rich meat to the layered filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream with the roux. Flour must be cooked with the butter and stirred smoothly into the cream. Undercooked or lumpy roux leaves a raw flour taste and uneven texture, so the sauce should be cooked until it reaches the thickness of thick cream.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, onion, pepper, butter, flour, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, onion, pepper, butter, flour, mushroom. 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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