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Puffs, with Chicken

A puff pastry turnover filled with chicken, ham, anchovy, and spices, fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Puffs, with Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine the chicken, ham, anchovy, parsley, lemon peel, shallot, cayenne, mace, and béchamel sauce in a stewpan.

  2. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

Assemble and fry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry.

  2. Cut the pastry into square pieces.

  3. Place some of the mixture on each square.

  4. Fold the pastry over and seal the edges with a fork.

  5. Fry the puffs in boiling lard until golden brown.

  6. Serve with fried parsley underneath.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 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

Chicken breast
Provides the main body of the filling, becoming tender and firm as it cooks.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the filling.
Béchamel sauce
Binds the chopped filling ingredients together and keeps it moist.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered outer shell that puffs and crisps when fried.
Shallot
Contributes a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying the puffs in boiling lard until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to set and brown the pastry quickly; if it is too cool the puffs absorb grease and turn soggy, while overly hot fat can brown the outside before the pastry is cooked through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, anchovy, parsley, lemon, shallot, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, anchovy, parsley, lemon, shallot, 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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