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Chicken Patties

A savory patty made from chopped chicken, ham, and spices, bound with flour and butter, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Chicken Patties

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Remove the skin from the chicken and chop it finely.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the chicken, ham, gravy (or water), lemon peel, mace or nutmeg, and seasonings. Heat the mixture until hot.

  3. Stir in the flour mixed with butter. Let the mixture simmer for a few minutes.

  4. Remove the mixture from heat and add the sweet cream.

Line and bake

  1. Line patty pans with puff pastry and brush the edges with melted butter.

  2. Place a piece of bread in each patty pan. Cover the bread with a thin layer of pastry.

  3. Bake the patties at 400°F (200°C).

Fill and serve

  1. Once baked, remove the top crust. Take out the bread.

  2. Fill the pastry with the chicken mixture. Return the patties to the oven for a moment.

  3. Serve.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving the patties their main substance and meaty texture.
Flour
Mixed with butter and simmered, it thickens the filling so it holds together in the pastry.
Butter
Enriches the filling and, brushed on the pastry edges, helps them brown and turn crisp.
Sweet cream
Added off the heat, it adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the chicken filling.

The step that matters

Adding the sweet cream off the heat. Cream added to a boiling mixture can curdle or split and become grainy. Removing the pan from the heat first lets the cream blend in smoothly and keeps the filling creamy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, lemon, mace, pepper, flour, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, lemon, mace, pepper, flour, butter. 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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