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Chicken Pudding

A baked custard of chicken, eggs, milk, and flour served with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a saucepan and cover with water.

  2. Boil until tender, then season with salt and pepper and simmer for 10–15 minutes.

  3. Remove the chicken from the broth and take out the large bones.

Make the pudding

  1. Place the chicken meat in a well-buttered pudding dish and season again if needed, then add a few bits of butter.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl and mix with milk, melted butter, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Add enough sifted flour to create a batter similar to griddle-cakes, then pour the batter over the chicken in the pudding dish.

  4. Bake for 1 hour at 350 °F (175 °C).

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Combine the remaining broth with flour and melted butter in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil, adding more water if necessary, and serve hot with the pudding.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 batter into a custard-like structure as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding body, and thickens the gravy.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and lightens while baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter, keeping the pudding tender.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and gives the gravy smoothness and body.

The step that matters

Pour the batter over the chicken and bake. The batter must be thin enough to spread over the chicken but thick enough to set. Baking at the stated temperature for the full time lets the eggs and flour set fully, so the pudding is not runny in the centre.

“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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