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Cream of Chicken

A baked casserole of minced chicken, pork, and suet with mushrooms, truffles, and cream, steamed in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Cream of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the chicken or turkey until tender.

  2. Finely mince the white meat, pork, and suet.

  3. Mix the minced meat with the beaten eggs, salt, pepper, and onion.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, lightly brown the butter with flour and onion, then add chicken stock and cream.

Assemble and steam

  1. Place this mixture in a mold, leaving a space in the center.

  2. Chop the tongue, mushrooms, truffles, and ¼ of the dark meat, and fill the center of the mold.

  3. Pour the mixture over the mold, cover well, and steam for 2 hours.

  4. Use a mold with a tube in the center for best results. This can also be made in individual molds.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  4. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the minced meat and set into a firm, sliceable custard-like structure when steamed.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce when cooked together.
Butter
Adds richness and a lightly nutty flavour when browned with the flour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the minced filling moist and tender as it steams.
Chicken stock
Supplies liquid and savoury flavour that forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. Covering the mold well traps steam so heat reaches the eggs and meat evenly. Gentle, sustained steam sets the mixture without making it rubbery or leaving it raw in the centre.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, cream, truffle, flour, pork, beef):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, cream, truffle, flour, pork, beef. 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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