Name: Chicken Patties
Ingredients: chicken; gravy or cream; butter; pastry; bread crumbs; bacon

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Chicken Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Prepare chicken gravy or cream and mix in a little butter.
Line scalloped shells with pastry.
Fill the shells with the chicken mixture.

Bake and serve

Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top.
Place two or three bits of butter on top.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.
Serve with bacon.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,241 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Forms the savoury filling that makes up the body of the patty.
Gravy or cream: Binds the chicken into a moist, spoonable filling that does not dry out in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top brown during baking.
Pastry: Forms the crisp shell that holds the filling.
Bread crumbs: Form a golden, lightly crisp topping as they toast in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown. Baking long enough lets the pastry cook through and the crumb and butter topping brown, while the filling heats fully. Pulling the patties too early leaves raw pastry and a pale top; leaving them too long can dry the filling and burn the crumbs.

“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.