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Of White Masking

A chicken dish finished with a white gelatinous sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Of White Masking

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the chicken gently with onions, carrots, celery, herbs, and seasoning until cooked.

  2. Ensure there are at least 3 pints of broth remaining after cooking.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the broth to the roux to create a blonde sauce.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in warm broth and stir it into the hot sauce.

  4. Pass the sauce through a sieve and let it cool until it thickens slightly.

Mask and finish

  1. Place the cold chicken on a large dish and mask it by pouring the sauce over it using a funnel.

  2. Finish the masking in one operation for an even coat.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or fowl
Provides the cooked meat that the sauce coats and is served with.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the roux, adding richness and a smooth texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth with the butter in the roux, giving the sauce body.
Broth
Forms the liquid of the sauce, carrying flavour from the cooked chicken and vegetables.
Gelatine
Sets as the sauce cools, helping it cling to the chicken in an even coat.

The step that matters

Finish the masking in one operation for an even coat.. Sauce that is too cold or too thick sets unevenly and forms streaks, while a second pass can drag the first layer off. Pouring once while the sauce is fluid and slightly cooled gives a smooth, even coat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, celery, butter, flour. 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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