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Chelsea Chicken Cutlets, with Green Peas

A rolled chicken dish bound with tongue, veal forcemeat, and ham, simmered in a gelatinous gravy and garnished with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chelsea Chicken Cutlets, with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Lay the boned chickens on a table and spread with a layer of boiled tongue, then seasoned veal forcemeat, and finally slices of broiled ham.

  2. Roll each chicken up firmly and tie with kitchen twine.

Cook and set

  1. Simmer the rolled chickens in a deep saucepan with chicken bones, herbs, onion, carrot, and enough water to cover for flavor.

  2. Once tender, remove the chickens and let the gravy simmer until reduced to 1 pint.

  3. Add dissolved gelatine to the gravy and let it cool until it nearly sets into jelly.

  4. Pour the jelly-like gravy over the sliced chickens, which should be unbound but retain their shape.

  5. Garnish the platter with parsley sprigs and sliced lemon.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Boned chickens
Form the main body of the dish and, once cooked, provide the sliced meat.
Gelatine
Sets the reduced gravy into a jelly that holds the sliced chicken together.
Seasoned veal forcemeat
Adds a moist, richly seasoned filling that keeps the rolled chicken juicy.
Chicken bones
Release collagen and flavour into the simmering water to make the gravy.

The step that matters

Reducing the gravy to 1 pint. Simmering concentrates the stock's flavour and body, while gelatine needs a well-flavoured liquid to set firmly. Gelatine added to gravy that is still too thin or too hot will not set properly, and the jelly will be weak or runny.

“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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