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Preserve

Potted Chicken

A dish of minced chicken mixed with butter, salt, cayenne pepper, and mace, pressed into jars and topped with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potted Chicken

Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Potted Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all bone and skin from the chicken and mince it finely.

  2. In a mortar, combine the minced chicken with ⅓ cup of butter.

Season and pound

  1. Season the mixture with salt, cayenne, and mace to taste, adding gradually until the desired flavor is achieved.

  2. Pound the mixture well until smooth and well combined.

Pot and seal

  1. Press the mixture into small jars or pots and pour clarified butter over the top, ensuring the butter is just liquid and not hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Remains of cold chicken
Provides the main body and protein of the spread once minced and pounded.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture that binds the minced meat.

The step that matters

Pour the clarified butter while it is just liquid. If the butter is too hot it can soften or cook the surface of the mixture and blur the seal, while butter that has begun to set will not pour evenly. Just-liquid butter forms a clean, even layer that keeps air out and helps the potted chicken keep well.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter. 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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