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Chicken Chartreuse

A baked dish of chicken and rice layered with cream, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken Chartreuse

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix chopped chicken with cream or leftover sauce.

Assemble

  1. Grease a mould with butter and line it with 1 inch of hot cooked rice.

  2. Fill the center of the mould with the chicken mixture and cover with more rice.

  3. Cover the mould and place it in a water bath.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve the chicken chartreuse surrounded by tomato sauce.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 filling and protein, bulking out the dish with savoury meat.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the chicken filling soft during baking.
Cooked rice
Forms the outer structure that holds the mould shape and cushions the filling.

The step that matters

Covering the mould for the water bath. A tight cover and gentle water bath surround heat the filling evenly and keep the cream from drying out or curdling. Too much direct heat can make the custard-like filling separate or toughen.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, rice, sauce, 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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