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Chicken Cream

A savory custard made with chicken, eggs, panada, and white sauce, baked in a mold and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and truffle work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 516 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Chicken Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Scrape and pound the chicken until smooth.

  2. Add the panada, beaten eggs, and a few spoonfuls of white sauce.

  3. Season with salt and white pepper.

  4. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until smooth.

Mold and steam

  1. Butter a mold.

  2. Decorate the top with pieces of tongue and truffle.

  3. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  4. Steam for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Turn the cream out of the mold.

  2. Serve with white sauce poured around.

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. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

White meat of raw chicken
Forms the main body of the custard, and pounding it smooth gives a fine, even texture.
Eggs
Set when steamed, binding the mixture into a firm, sliceable custard.
Panada
Adds body and helps keep the custard tender and moist as it sets.
Thick white sauce
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the custard soft rather than dry.

The step that matters

Steam for 1 hour. Egg proteins set gently in steam. Too much heat or boiling can make the custard rough, spongy, or cracked, so keep the water at a gentle simmer.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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