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Chaud-froid De Volaille

A chilled French chicken dish with broth, layered with boiled eggs and seasoned chicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chaud-froid De Volaille

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the fowl in enough water to cover it, adding garlic, cloves, allspice, salt, and bay leaf.

  2. Cook until the meat is tender and falling off the bones.

  3. Remove the meat, chop it finely, and season with salt and pepper.

Make the mold

  1. Rinse a smooth mold with cold water.

  2. Layer slices of cold hard-boiled egg and chopped chicken in the mold until filled.

  3. Boil down the chicken broth to about 1½ cups, strain, and season with pepper, salt, and cayenne if needed.

  4. Pour the broth over the chicken layers.

  5. Refrigerate for several hours until firm, then unmold and serve with salad.

  6. For a richer version, cool the broth and mix with an equal amount of Mayonnaise Sauce before pouring over the chicken.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the meat that becomes tender and is chopped for the layers.
Chicken broth (in the method)
Gels as it cools, binding the chicken and egg layers into a firm loaf.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a firm, mild contrast in texture and color between the chicken layers.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and richness to the broth in the optional richer version.

The step that matters

Boil down the chicken broth to about 1½ cups. Reducing concentrates the gelatin and flavor from the bones. Too little reduction leaves the broth weak, so it may not set firm enough to hold the layers when unmolded.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, pepper, egg, sauce):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, pepper, egg, sauce. 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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