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Chicken Ob Potted Ham

A dish of chicken pieces cooked with mace, cloves, pepper, then pounded and layered with spices and lard in earthen pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Chicken Ob Potted Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Season the chicken pieces with mace, cloves, and pepper.

  2. Bake in a covered pan with some water at 350°F (175°C) for about two hours.

Pot and seal

  1. Once cooked, pound the chicken into small pieces.

  2. Moisten the chicken with melted butter or the cooking liquid.

  3. Layer the chicken with equal amounts of ground mace, cloves, and pepper in small earthen pots.

  4. Press the mixture down tightly and cover with lard.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pieces of chicken
Forms the main body of the potted mixture, giving it its meaty texture.
Lard
Sealing layer on top that excludes air and helps preserve the potted chicken.
Melted butter or cooking liquid
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pounded chicken soft and spreadable.

The step that matters

Press the mixture down tightly before covering with lard. Pressing removes air pockets, and a complete fat seal over the surface keeps air away from the meat, which slows spoilage and oxidation.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, clove, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, clove, pepper, butter. 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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