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Chicken Cream

A steamed chicken custard made with white sauce, panada, eggs, and optional truffle and tongue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,449 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Chicken Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and pound the chicken.

Make the mixture

  1. Add the panada, beaten eggs, and a few spoonfuls of white sauce; season and mix thoroughly and smoothly.

Mold and steam

  1. Butter a mold and decorate the top with tongue and truffle.

  2. Pour in the mixture and steam for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn the cream out of the mold and serve with white sauce poured around.

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. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

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

  5. Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

White meat of a young chicken
Provides the main body and flavor of the cream once pounded and steamed.
Eggs
Set when steamed, giving the cream its firm, sliceable structure.
Panada
Binds the pounded chicken and adds body so the mixture holds together.
Thick white sauce
Adds moisture and a smooth, tender texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pour in the mixture and steam for 30 minutes. Steam heat must be gentle and steady so the egg proteins set into a smooth, tender custard rather than curdling or turning porous and rubbery. Overheating causes the eggs to tighten and weep liquid.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, chicken, sauce, egg, truffle):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, sauce, egg, truffle. 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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