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Mayonnaise De Volaille a LA Reine Alexandra

A cold layered chicken dish with mayonnaise, truffles, ham, pimientos, and green sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mayonnaise De Volaille a LA Reine Alexandra

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and lettuce

  1. Remove the skin and bone from the fowl, and cut the meat into pieces.

  2. Mix the chicken pieces with mayonnaise.

  3. Trim and wash the lettuces, then season with salt, pepper, and a little mayonnaise.

Line the basin

  1. Place a pudding basin on crushed ice and line it with a thin layer of aspic.

  2. Once set, decorate with strips of tongue, truffle, and pimientos.

  3. Mix the green sauce with the remaining aspic and coat the interior of the basin.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the basin with alternate layers of chicken, lettuce, small pieces of ham, remaining tongue, truffle, and pimientos.

  2. Season each layer and coat with sauce and aspic.

  3. Chill on ice for 1.5 hours, then turn out onto a round dish and serve.

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. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Truffle + hamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled fowl
Provides the main body of the dish as cut chicken meat.
Mayonnaise
Binds the chicken and adds moisture and richness to the filling.
Aspic
Sets into a clear gel that holds the decorations and coats each layer.
Truffles
Add a distinctive earthy aroma and decorative contrast.
Cabbage lettuces
Add crisp texture and freshness between the layers.

The step that matters

Lining the basin with aspic. The aspic must be partly set before decorations are placed, or the pieces will sink or smear. Chilling the basin on crushed ice speeds setting and keeps the gel firm enough to hold its pattern when the dish is unmoulded.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, lettuce, ham, pepper, sauce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, lettuce, ham, 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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