Name: Boiled Chickens
Ingredients: 2 whole chickens; water; coarse sea salt; pork (optional)

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Boiled Chickens

Ingredients

2 whole chickens
water
coarse sea salt
pork (optional)

Directions

Prepare

Dress and clean the chickens as you would a turkey.
Place the chickens in a large pot and cover with water.
Add coarse sea salt to taste.
If using, add pork to the pot.

Cook and serve

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 to 2 hours, depending on the size of the chickens.
Remove from heat and serve.

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.

Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens: Provide the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers gently in the liquid.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the cooking water so the chicken is flavoured as it cooks.

“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.