Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Chickens. Parsley and Butter.

A boiled whole chicken served with a butter and parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Boiled Chickens. Parsley and Butter.

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Cook the chicken

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

  2. Add the whole chicken and cook until fully cooked, about 1 hour.

  3. Remove the chicken and let it rest.

Make the parsley butter

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Chop the fresh parsley and mix it with the melted butter.

Serve

  1. Serve the chicken with parsley butter drizzled on top.

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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and fully cooked when simmered in water.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the parsley flavour and coating the chicken when drizzled.
Fresh parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma that contrasts with the rich butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the whole chicken until fully cooked. A whole bird is thick, so heat must reach the centre slowly. Cooking it fully in simmering water ensures the thickest parts reach a safe internal temperature, while overcooking can make the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes