Skip to main content
Main

Chaud Froid of Chicken

A cold chicken dish served in aspic with white sauce, cream, mayonnaise, and mixed vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 699 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Chaud Froid of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat ½ pint of white sauce in a stewpan until it boils, stirring until reduced to ⅓ cup.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of cream and stir until it just boils.

  3. Pass the sauce through a tammy sieve into a basin.

  4. Stir in 2 teaspoons of aspic jelly until well combined.

Coat and set the chicken

  1. Cut a cold roast chicken into even pieces, removing the skin and trimming each piece.

  2. Dip the chicken pieces in the sauce, ensuring they are well coated.

  3. Place the chicken on a drainer over a dish and let the sauce set.

Arrange and serve

  1. Arrange the chicken pieces on chopped aspic jelly in a circle on a serving dish.

  2. Fill the center with mixed vegetables, cut into desired shapes.

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. Carrot + beetroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together699 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Potato + beetroottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

White sauce
Reduced and enriched, it forms the coating that sets around the chicken.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.
Aspic jelly
Gelatine-based setting agent that helps the coating firm up as it cools.
Mixed vegetables
Provide colour and texture as the garnish around the chicken.

The step that matters

Let the sauce set on the chicken. The coating only firms when it is cooled and the aspic gelatine sets, so the chicken must rest undisturbed on the drainer. Moving or handling it too early can smear or thin the coating.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, sauce, cream, potato, carrot, beetroot):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sauce, cream, potato, carrot, beetroot. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipes