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Chicken Pates

A puff pastry shell filled with a seasoned chicken mixture.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Pates

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line small pate pans with puff pastry.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil and stir in the corn starch to thicken.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and pepper to the thickened milk.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake the pastry in the oven until lightly browned.

  2. Fill the baked pastry with the minced chicken mixture.

  3. Return to the oven for a few minutes to brown slightly.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Forms the savory bulk of the filling and carries most of the flavor.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that becomes a creamy, moist binding sauce.
Corn starch
Swells when heated and thickens the milk so the filling holds together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel in the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky shell that browns in the oven and holds the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with corn starch. Corn starch thickens only once heated, and it clumps if dropped in unstirred. Stir it in steadily so the sauce becomes smooth and thick enough to hold the chicken.

“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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