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Chicken Loaf

A loaf of minced chicken baked in a mold, seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, and set with hard‑boiled egg slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken in a small amount of water until the meat can be easily picked from the bone.

  2. Mince the chicken finely and return it to the cooking water.

  3. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the butter to the mixture and mix well.

Mould and set

  1. Butter a square mold.

  2. Cover the bottom of the mold with slices of hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Add the minced chicken on top of the egg slices.

  4. Cover the chicken with a weight.

  5. Chill until set.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body of the loaf, binding together once cooled and set.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the loaf a softer, more tender texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Form a firm, sliced layer that shows as a pattern when the loaf is cut.

The step that matters

Cover the chicken with a weight. Pressing the loaf while it cools squeezes out excess liquid and packs the pieces together, so the set loaf holds its shape and slices cleanly.

“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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