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Rossolet of Cold Roast Chicken

A fried pastry-wrapped ball of minced cold roast chicken seasoned with mace, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rossolet of Cold Roast Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the white and good parts of the cold roast chicken.

  2. Warm the minced chicken in white sauce until heated through.

  3. Season with mace, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. When cold, roll the mixture into balls the size of large eggs using two silver spoons.

Fry and serve

  1. Wrap each ball in thin pastry.

  2. Fry the wrapped balls in hot oil until golden brown.

  3. Serve with fried parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast chicken
Provides the main filling, giving the balls their meaty bulk and flavour.
White sauce
Binds the minced chicken together and keeps the filling moist and creamy.
Thin pastry
Encloses the filling and crisps and browns in the hot oil.

The step that matters

Letting the filling cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is hard to roll into neat balls and may slump or tear the pastry. Cooling lets the white sauce firm up so the balls hold their shape during wrapping and frying.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, sauce, pepper, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sauce, pepper, nutmeg, parsley. 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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