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Timbals of Chicken

A steamed chicken dish with mushrooms, cream, and spices, served in a buttered mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Timbals of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the white meat of the chicken.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced chicken, salt, cayenne pepper, onion juice, parsley, flour, beaten egg white, mushrooms, chicken stock, and cream.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold or molds.

  2. Steam for about 1 hour.

  3. Serve with 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein that sets into the body of the timbale.
Egg white
Beaten stiff, it traps air and helps the mixture set and hold its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the timbale soft and tender.
Flour
Thickens the mixture slightly so it holds together when steamed.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the mixture.
Chicken stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Steaming the mixture. Steam gently and keep the water from boiling hard into the mold; the egg white and chicken proteins set gradually, and too much heat can make the timbale dense, rubbery, or cracked.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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