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Chicken Pudding

A baked chicken pudding made with chicken, eggs, milk, butter, and flour, served with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a saucepan and cover with water. Boil until tender.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then simmer for 10-15 minutes.

  3. Remove the chicken from the broth and take out the large bones.

  4. Place the chicken meat in a well-buttered pudding dish and season again if necessary. Add a few bits of butter.

Make the batter and bake

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix with milk, melted butter, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Add enough sifted flour to create a batter like griddle-cakes.

  3. Pour the batter over the chicken in the pudding dish.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with ⅓ cup of melted butter and stir into the remaining chicken broth.

  2. Let the gravy boil, adding more water if necessary.

  3. Serve hot with the pudding.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure and thickens the gravy.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the pudding and gravy.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Making the gravy. Flour must be fully mixed into the melted butter before the broth is added, and the gravy must be kept at a boil long enough for the starch to cook and thicken, otherwise it stays raw-tasting and lumpy.

“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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