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Chicken and Ham Tie

A savory pie of chicken and ham with mushrooms, shallots, parsley, and puff pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken and Ham Tie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with alternating slices of veal and ham.

  3. Season with mushrooms, shallot, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  4. Add a little white sauce, stock, or water.

  5. Arrange the chicken pieces neatly on top and season again.

  6. Add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mask the top with more sauce, cover with puff pastry, and glaze with beaten egg.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body of the filling and savoury flavour as it cooks through.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp top crust that puffs and browns in the hot oven.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that keeps the filling from drying out.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a firm, crumbly texture to the filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and meaty depth to the layers.
Egg
Beaten egg glaze promotes even browning and a glossy finish on the pastry.

The step that matters

Glazing the pastry. Brushing beaten egg evenly over the puff pastry promotes glossy, golden browning. Uneven coverage leaves pale patches, and the pastry will not rise as evenly in the oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, ham, mushroom, shallot, pepper, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, ham, mushroom, shallot, pepper, 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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