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Chicken Patties

Chicken patties made with minced chicken, béchamel sauce, cayenne pepper, mace, puff pastry, egg, and salt, baked until pastry is done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Patties

Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the chicken and moisten it with the béchamel sauce.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper, salt, and ground mace.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line patty pans with puff pastry and fill them with the chicken mixture.

  2. Cover the filled pans with more pastry and brush with beaten egg.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes until the pastry is done.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Chicken + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Chicken
Provides the main filling, and its moisture is kept by the béchamel sauce.
Béchamel sauce
Moistens the minced chicken so the filling stays tender rather than dry.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that encloses the filling.
Egg
Brushed on top, it promotes browning and a glossy finish on the pastry.

The step that matters

Bake until the pastry is done. Puff pastry relies on steam from its layers to rise and crisp. Underbaking leaves it doughy and pale, while the filling needs enough heat to cook through.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sauce, pepper, egg. 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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