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Timbale of Chicken

A baked chicken and ham timbale with macaroni, mushrooms, and spices, steamed in a buttered mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Timbale of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into short pieces.

  2. Boil a large saucepan of water with a little salt.

  3. Add the macaroni and boil gently for just over 5 minutes.

  4. Drain the macaroni and cut it into pieces about ⅓ inch long.

Line and fill the mold

  1. Butter a plain mold or bowl and line it with the macaroni pieces standing on end.

  2. Chop the chicken, ham, and mushrooms, then mix with bread crumbs, salt, pepper, lemon rind, and nutmeg.

  3. Beat the egg with a little milk and mix it into the chicken mixture until moist but not sloppy.

  4. Carefully spoon the mixture into the mold, pressing it down into the corners.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover with buttered paper and steam in a covered saucepan with a little water for 1 hour.

  2. Turn out carefully and serve.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms a standing pasta lining that gives the timbale its shape and structure.
Chicken
Provides the main protein that sets into a firm, sliceable filling when steamed.
Egg
Binds the chicken mixture so it holds together when turned out.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and helps give the filling a tender, cohesive texture.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the chicken filling.

The step that matters

Turn out carefully and serve. Egg-bound fillings set firm only after steaming. Cooling briefly before inverting helps the timbale hold its shape and keep the macaroni lining intact.

“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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