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Chicken Timbales

A baked chicken dish shaped in molds with breadcrumbs and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,389 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Chicken Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Grind the chicken breast until very fine.

  2. Heat the milk over steam and stir in the breadcrumbs until thick.

  3. Mix in the ground chicken and beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into timbale molds.

  2. Place the molds in a baking dish filled with hot water and bake for 15 minutes.

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 + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Egg + chickentop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Set when heated, giving the timbale its firm, sliceable structure.
Chicken breast
Its protein sets when cooked, forming the body of the timbale.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the hot milk and thicken the mixture, giving it body before baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the breadcrumbs, keeping the finished texture tender.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. The hot water around the molds moderates the oven's heat, so the egg whites and chicken set gently. Without it, the edges can overcook, curdle, or dry out before the centre sets.

“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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