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Chicken Pates

A baked pastry shell filled with seasoned chicken and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Pates

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Pates

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Season the minced chicken well.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil and stir in the cornstarch to thicken.

  3. Add the butter, salt, and pepper to the sauce.

Bake and fill

  1. Line small pate pans with puff pastry.

  2. Bake the crust in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  3. Fill the baked crusts with the chicken mixture and return to the oven for a few minutes to brown slightly.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a sauce when heated, giving the filling body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the sauce.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, golden crust that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with cornstarch. Cornstarch thickens only when the liquid reaches a boil and is stirred, as its starch granules swell and gelatinize. Adding it to cold or under-heated milk leaves a thin sauce, and stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base.

“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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