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Chicken Tamale Loaf

A baked loaf of chicken, corn, tomatoes, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chicken Tamale Loaf

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.

Make the filling

  1. Combine tomatoes, corn, chopped onion, minced garlic, chili powder, and butter in a pot and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Stir in milk, cornmeal, eggs, shredded chicken, and broth until well mixed.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for two hours.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the cornmeal and chicken mixture so it sets into a sliceable loaf.
Yellow cornmeal
Provides the body and tamale-like texture of the loaf as it absorbs liquid and cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the cornmeal batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Chicken
Supplies the main protein and savory flavor of the loaf.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, corn, onion, garlic, butter, olive, milk):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, corn, onion, garlic, butter, olive, milk. 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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