Name: How to Prepare Poultry-puree for a Garnish
Ingredients: ½ pound cooked chicken, white meat; 2 tablespoons butter; 4 tablespoons cooked rice; 2 tablespoons cold sauce; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

How to Prepare Poultry-puree for a Garnish

Ingredients

½ pound cooked chicken, white meat
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons cooked rice
2 tablespoons cold sauce
coarse sea salt to taste

Directions

Prepare

Remove the skin from the chicken and cut it into small pieces.
Pound the chicken in a mortar with butter and cooked rice until it forms a paste.

Finish the puree

Season the mixture and add cold sauce.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
Heat the puree gently, stirring with a spoon without boiling.

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.

Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

Cooked chicken: Provides the main protein and body of the puree.
Butter: Adds richness and smooth texture to the paste.
Cooked rice: Adds starch that helps bind the pounded chicken into a paste.
Cold sauce: Adds moisture and flavor to the puree.

The step that matters

Heat the puree gently without boiling. Boiling can cause the emulsified butter and starch to separate and make the puree grainy or loose. Gentle heat keeps the texture smooth and uniform.

“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.

Rice Cake120 recipes

Rice Cream43 recipes

Rice Jelly42 recipes

Rice Pudding22 recipes

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How to Prepare Poultry-puree for a Garnish