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 Mould
Ingredients
Directions
Make the chicken mould
Beat together the minced chicken, eggs, milk, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and salt in a bowl.
Pour the mixture into a mold and steam for one hour.
Make the white sauce
Heat 1 pint of milk in a double boiler for the white sauce.
Mix the butter and flour until smooth in a separate bowl.
Stir the butter and flour mixture into the boiling milk.
Cook for eight minutes, strain, and serve with the chicken mould.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set it firm as the mould steams.
- Minced chicken
- Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the mould.
- Butter and flour
- Form a roux that thickens the milk into a white sauce.
The step that matters
Stir the butter and flour mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the roux to boiling milk while stirring constantly helps it disperse evenly. Dumping it in without whisking can leave lumps, so the sauce stays smooth only if the mixture is worked in steadily.
“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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