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Dessert

Chicken Creams

A chilled dessert made with cold chicken, aspic jelly, cream, ham, and seasonings, garnished with parsley and hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,449 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Chicken Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the aspic jelly and let it cool nearly to room temperature.

  2. Beat the cream until very stiff.

  3. Mix the cooled jelly with the whipped cream.

  4. Cut the chicken into very small pieces and mince the ham.

Make the creams

  1. Combine the chicken and ham, then season to taste.

  2. Add the chicken mixture to the cream and jelly, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Pour the mixture into small molds that have been dipped in cold water.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, garnished with parsley and slices of hard-boiled egg.

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 + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

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

  2. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 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

Cold chicken
Provides the main body and substance of the cream, set firmly within the jelly.
Aspic jelly
Sets the mixture as it cools, giving the creams their firm, sliceable structure.
Cream
Whipped to stiffness, it lightens the texture and adds richness to the set mixture.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour to the chicken mixture.

The step that matters

Let the jelly cool nearly to room temperature before mixing. Aspic that is still hot will deflate the whipped cream and melt the structure you built, while jelly that is too cold may set in lumps before it combines. Cooling it nearly to room temperature keeps the cream airy so the mixture can set evenly in the molds.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, cream, ham, egg. 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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