Skip to main content
Main

Timbales of Egg and Chicken

A baked dish of chicken and egg mixture shaped in molds and topped with yolk and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Timbales of Egg and Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the chicken mixture

  1. Combine chopped chicken and enough stock in a saucepan and heat gently.

  2. Mix corn starch with milk and stir into the chicken mixture. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat, beat in the egg white, and spread the mixture on a dish to cool.

Fill and bake

  1. Once stiff, butter the timbale molds and line them with the chicken mixture.

  2. Place an egg yolk in the center of each mold, season with salt and pepper, and add a small piece of butter on top.

  3. Set the molds in a pan of boiling water in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) and cover closely. Cook for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Invert onto small hot plates and top each timbale with a spoonful of egg sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Forms the main body of the timbale once cooked and set.
Corn starch
Thickens the chicken mixture so it holds its shape when cooled and molded.
Egg white
Beaten into the mixture to help it set firm when cooked.
Egg yolk
Cooks in the center of each mold to form a soft, rich filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the chicken mixture.

The step that matters

Cooling until stiff before molding. The mixture must be fully cooled and firm before lining the molds, because warm, loose chicken cannot hold its shape and may collapse or tear when inverted. Cooking the starch thoroughly also matters for a firm, stable structure.

“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 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes