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Cream of Chicken

A creamy chicken dish made by pounding meat and bread, mixing with sauce, butter, sherry, eggs, and cream, then steaming in timbale molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the chicken, veal, or rabbit until smooth.

  2. Pound the panada until smooth and mix with the meat.

  3. Add the soubise sauce, butter, sherry, pepper, salt, and eggs to the mixture.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine wire sieve and stir in the cream.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter small timbale molds and fill them with the mixture, tapping the molds on the table.

  2. Steam the molds for about 15 minutes.

  3. Carefully turn them out and serve hot, optionally with tomato sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken, veal, or rabbit
Provides the main protein that sets into a firm, smooth custard-like body when steamed.
Panada
Bread soaked in hot milk adds moisture and a tender, light texture to the mixture.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the mixture so the molds hold their shape when turned out.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the mixture.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the finished cream soft and delicate.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks up any remaining fibres and lumps so the mixture is smooth; without it the steamed molds can be grainy rather than silky.

“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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