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Chicken Pates

A baked pastry dish filled with seasoned minced chicken and a creamy sauce.

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 the oven and filling

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

  2. Mince the cooked chicken and season it well.

Make the sauce

  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 sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. Line small pâté pans with puff pastry.

  2. Bake the pastry until lightly golden.

  3. Fill the baked pastry with the chicken mixture and 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
Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the chicken.
Corn starch
Swells when heated in the milk, thickening the sauce so it holds together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the sauce.
Puff pastry
Its layers of fat and dough puff and crisp in the oven, forming the case.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with corn starch. Corn starch only thickens fully when the liquid reaches a boil while being stirred. Adding it without stirring can cause lumps, and a sauce that is not hot enough stays thin and runny inside the pastry.

“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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