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Potted Chicken

Potted Chicken is a minced chicken and ham mixture bound with butter and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potted Chicken

Why it works: Chicken and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Potted Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the chicken and ham through a mincing machine twice.

  2. Pound the minced mixture in a mortar with the butter and season well.

  3. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

Pot and seal

  1. Transfer it into small china jars and smooth the top.

  2. Pour 1 tablespoon of clarified butter over the mixture.

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

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

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + nutmegtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,659 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

Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the paste, giving it its savoury flavour and fine texture.
Butter
Pounded into the meat to enrich it, adding richness and a smooth, spreadable texture.
Clarified butter
Poured over the top to seal the jars, excluding air and helping the potted meat keep.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a wire sieve. Pressing the minced meat through a fine sieve breaks down remaining fibres and lumps, producing the smooth, even texture the dish depends on.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, 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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