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Chicken Alb

A plump chicken is parboiled, its breast reshaped with a minced meat and cream mixture, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Alb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Parboil the chicken.

  2. Remove the breast and merrythought.

  3. Mince the meat finely with double the amount of chicken or veal, and add a little salt.

  4. Mix with ½ cup of cream to form a paste.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Add the minced mixture to the saucepan.

  3. Cook on low heat for 10 minutes, stirring carefully.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lard the chicken.

  2. Place the chicken in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the minced meat to the chicken, shaping it into a round breast.

  4. Dust with flour.

  5. Return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

  6. Serve with additional cream sauce.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

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

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

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is minced and shaped.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, binding the minced meat into a smooth paste and forming the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, helping the minced mixture cook smoothly in the saucepan.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the outside brown and form a light crust in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the minced mixture on low heat. Cream-based mixtures can scorch or separate if heated too fast. Low heat and careful stirring let the mixture thicken evenly into a smooth paste.

“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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