Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Timbales

Chicken Timbales are baked chicken and breadcrumb mixtures served in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the bread crumbs and milk, stirring to combine.

  3. Mix in the chopped chicken, pepper, salt, and beaten egg yolks.

  4. Remove from heat and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into timbale cups and bake until set.

  2. Serve with 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body, and its proteins set into a firm, sliceable texture when baked.
Eggs
Yolks bind and enrich the mixture, while whites, beaten stiff, lighten it and help it rise and set.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter, adding body and helping the mixture hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the baked custard tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and coats the crumbs to carry fat through the mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites. Stirring hard deflates them, so the timbales bake denser and rise less.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, milk, chicken, pepper, egg, onion):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, milk, chicken, pepper, egg, onion. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes