Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Pates

A puff pastry dish filled with minced chicken and a thickened milk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a saucepan, heat the milk and stir in the corn starch until thickened.

  3. Mix the minced chicken with the thickened milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Line small pate pans with puff pastry.

  2. Bake the crust until lightly golden.

  3. Fill the crust with the chicken mixture.

  4. 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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 body and protein of the pâté filling.
Milk
Forms a thickened base with the corn starch that keeps the filling moist.
Corn starch
Thickens the heated milk so the chicken mixture holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the corn starch into the milk until thickened. Corn starch must be heated in liquid to swell and gelatinize. If it is under-heated, the sauce stays thin and the chicken filling will be loose; if overheated or left too long, it can thin again.

“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

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes