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Chicken Custard

A baked custard made with chopped chicken, stock, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Chop the cooked chicken breast and run it through a sieve to measure ¼ cup.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chicken, white stock, and beaten egg.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, celery salt, paprika, nutmeg, and anchovy essence.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Bake in a pan of hot water at 400°F (200°C) until firm.

  3. Cool, then remove from the mold and cut into small cubes.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  4. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets when heated, binding the chicken and stock into a firm custard.
White stock
Adds liquid that keeps the custard moist while the egg sets.
Cooked chicken breast
Provides the main substance and flavor of the custard.

The step that matters

Baking in a pan of hot water. A water bath keeps the oven heat gentle around the mold, so the egg sets evenly and smoothly instead of curdling or turning rubbery at the edges.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, pepper, nutmeg, anchovy, 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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