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Chicken Custards

A savory chicken custard made with minced roast fowl, cream, and spices, baked and served with peas and Supreme sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard base

  1. Remove skin, bones, and gristle from the meat, then mince it finely.

  2. Pound the minced meat in a mortar with butter and reduced white sauce; season with white pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine wire sieve and place it in a small stew-pan.

  4. Add cream and chicken glaze, stir over heat until well mixed.

  5. Spread the mixture in a square form on a flat dish to about ¼ inch thick and let it cool until stiff.

  6. Cut into oblong slices about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

Make the panada mixture

  1. Remove raw flesh from the breast and remaining fowl, scrape it down, and pound it with a little white stock.

  2. Pass through a wire sieve, return to the mortar, and add butter and bread panada; pound well.

  3. Add one whole egg and the yolk of another, mix well, and season with white pepper, salt, grated nutmeg, and cayenne.

Coat and fry

  1. Spread a thin coating of this mixture on the prepared oblong slices, dust with flour, dip in beaten egg, and cover with bread crumbs.

  2. Place on a wire drainer and fry in boiling fat until golden brown.

  3. Dish in a circle with green peas in the center and pour Supreme sauce underneath.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat from the leg of a cold roast fowl
Forms the bulk of the custard, giving it body and a savoury chicken flavour.
Reduced white sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the minced meat stays smooth and tender.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the custard soft and silky when chilled and cooked.
Chicken glaze
Concentrates chicken flavour and helps the mixture set firm when cooled.
Bread panada
Binds the mixture with starch and moisture, helping it hold together when fried.
Egg
Sets during cooking to bind the mixture and give structure to the custard.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden, browned outer coating when fried.

The step that matters

Let the custard cool until stiff before cutting. The mixture must be fully chilled and firm so the slices keep their shape. If cut while soft, they will lose form and tear when coated and fried.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, sauce, nutmeg, cream, chicken, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, sauce, nutmeg, cream, chicken, bread. 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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