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Chicken Chartreuse

A chilled chicken and rice dish with cream and sherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and chicken 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

Prepare the rice shell

  1. Boil the rice in salted water until very soft, then press it into a mold to form a layer 1 inch thick on the bottom and sides.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream, egg yolk, flour, butter, sherry, salt, and red pepper. Cook until thick.

  2. Stir in the chicken until it absorbs the sauce and becomes very stiff.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pack the chicken mixture into the mold and cover with another inch of rice.

  2. Refrigerate until hardened, then serve on a round platter with a broad-bladed knife and spoon.

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. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Rice
Forms a soft, pressed shell that holds the filling in shape.
Cream
Provides moisture and richness that thickens into the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it cooks and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it binds the chicken together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce.
Cold chicken
Forms the main filling, absorbing the sauce until firm.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce until thick. Egg yolk and flour must be cooked long enough to thicken the cream fully. Undercooked sauce stays runny, so the chicken will not absorb it or set firm when chilled.

“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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