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Deviled Chicken

A savory chicken dish baked with butter, breadcrumbs, cream, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Deviled Chicken

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.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, chicken, and cream; stir until heated.

  3. Press the yolks and whites of the hard-boiled eggs through a sieve and add to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the parsley and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Remove from heat and transfer to shells or individual souffle dishes.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with greased bread crumbs and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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

Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the filling and gives it substance.
Cream
Adds moisture so the chicken mixture stays soft and creamy.
Hard-boiled eggs
Bind the mixture and add richness to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help give the filling body, and brown on top.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps the mixture cook gently in the pan.

The step that matters

Browning the topping in the oven. Greased bread crumbs need enough heat to turn golden without drying out the filling underneath. Watching colour prevents the top from burning before the dish is heated through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, parsley, butter, bread, cream, egg, pepper. 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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