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Chicken Timbale

A baked chicken and egg custard served with a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Timbale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Chop the meat from the breast and second joints of an uncooked chicken using a meat chopper.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped chicken with 5 eggs, beating each egg in thoroughly.

  3. Add salt, pepper, celery salt, and mushrooms (if using) to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the heavy cream until well combined.

  5. Grease a mold with butter and decorate with slices of hard-boiled egg or truffles.

  6. Pour the chicken mixture into the mold and cover with buttered paper.

Cook the timbale

  1. Place the mold in a pan of hot water and cook until the center feels firm, about 30 to 45 minutes.

  2. Do not let the water boil during cooking.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, cook chicken bones in cold water, seasoned with soup seasonings, for 3 hours.

  2. Strain the stock to reduce it to 1 cup.

  3. In a separate pan, combine ½ cup cream with 2 tablespoons flour mixed into 2 tablespoons melted butter, and season to taste.

  4. Pour the sauce around the timbale when ready to serve.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Celery + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the chicken and set into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Chicken meat
Forms the main body of the timbale, giving it its savory flavor and substance.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture, producing a softer, silkier custard texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture so the sauce becomes smooth and coating.

The step that matters

Keep the water below a boil. Gentle heat lets the egg custard set evenly. Boiling water cooks the outside too fast, causing a rough, bubbly, or cracked texture.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, egg, pepper, mushroom, cream, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, egg, pepper, mushroom, cream, 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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