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Chicken Croustades

A baked roll filled with minced chicken or turkey, ham or tongue, and white sauce, topped with breadcrumbs, parsley, Parmesan, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Croustades

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 the filling

  1. Prepare a salpicon of minced chicken or turkey and ham or tongue with a stiff white sauce.

Fill the rolls

  1. Cut small French rolls in half lengthwise and scoop out some of the soft interior.

  2. Insert the chicken salpicon into the rolls.

  3. Cover with a little white sauce, then sprinkle with fresh bread crumbs, chopped parsley, and grated Parmesan cheese.

  4. Brush the tops with oiled butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced chicken or turkey
Forms the main meaty filling and gives the crostades their body.
Minced ham or tongue
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the chicken filling.
Stiff white sauce
Binds the minced meats together so the filling holds its shape.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Fresh bread crumbs
Crisp up in the oven, adding a golden, crunchy topping.

The step that matters

Make the white sauce stiff. A stiff sauce binds the minced meat so it stays in place inside the rolls. A thin sauce would run out during baking and leave the filling soggy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, sauce, bread, parmesan cheese, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, sauce, bread, parmesan cheese, 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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