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Potted Chicken

A dish of chicken cooked with butter, salt, cayenne, mace, nutmeg, and optional ham, then set in a pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potted Chicken

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potted Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into small pieces.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the chicken with butter, salt, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg until it forms a paste.

Pot and seal

  1. Pack the mixture tightly into jelly glasses.

  2. Cover the top with clarified butter.

  3. Add slices of ham for extra flavor, if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace 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

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the paste and gives the dish its main texture and flavor.
Butter
Binds the pounded chicken into a smooth paste and adds richness and moisture.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the paste.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor that complements the chicken and butter.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a gentle background heat that balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Pack the mixture tightly into jelly glasses. Packing removes air pockets so the paste sets dense and smooth, and the clarified butter sealed over the top keeps air out and helps the dish keep well.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

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