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Timbales of Chicken

A baked dish of minced chicken and ham with breadcrumbs, herbs, and sauce, served in a molded form.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Timbales of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moulds

  1. Grease small plain moulds.

  2. Line the moulds with rings of cooked macaroni or twists of spaghetti.

Make and cook the timbales

  1. Mix the minced chicken, ham, bread crumbs, parsley, mushrooms, truffle, egg, white sauce, cream, pepper, and salt together.

  2. Fill the moulds with the mixture.

  3. Steam the moulds for 20 to 30 minutes until firm.

Serve

  1. Turn out the timbales.

  2. Pour the tomato sauce around them.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the minced mixture so the timbales set firm when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the timbales a softer, lighter body.
White sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the mixture stays tender rather than dry.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and the bulk of the timbale's structure.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and salt-cured depth to the chicken base.

The step that matters

Steam until firm, not overcooked. Egg proteins set as they heat, so steaming just until firm keeps the timbales tender and moist. Overcooking makes the egg mixture tight and rubbery and can cause it to weep liquid.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, bread, mushroom, truffle, egg, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, bread, mushroom, truffle, egg, sauce. 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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