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Chicken Mould

A steamed chicken and ham custard with butter, cream, eggs, and spices, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs until light and mix with the melted butter.

  3. Chop the chicken and ham finely, then pound them together, adding a little of the egg and butter mixture to moisten.

Make the mould

  1. Once smooth, fold in the whipped cream and the remaining egg mixture, then season to taste.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold or basin.

  3. Steam gently for 30 to 35 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with a little sauce poured around and the remainder in a sauceboat.

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

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Eggs
Set the mixture and bind it into a firm, sliceable mould when steamed.
Cream
Adds moisture and a light, tender texture to the mould.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the mould stay tender.
Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the mould, giving it its substance and flavour.
Lean ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the chicken base.

The step that matters

Steam gently for 30 to 35 minutes. Eggs set when heated, so high heat or boiling can make the mould curdled, spongy or watery. Gentle steaming cooks it evenly into a smooth, tender texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, butter, cream, egg, sauce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, butter, cream, egg, sauce. 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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