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Pickled Chicken

Pickled chicken made by boiling chickens, then preserving the meat in cider vinegar and boiling water with optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pickled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens until the meat is tender and falls from the bones.

Pickle

  1. Place the meat in a stone jar.

  2. Pour 3 pints of cold cider vinegar and 1½ pints of the boiling water over the meat.

  3. Add spices if desired.

  4. Let it sit for 2 days before using.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Chicken + cidertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together374 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that is cooked until tender and then soaked in the brine.
Cider vinegar
Its acidity penetrates the meat over time, sharpening its flavor and helping preserve it.
Boiling water from the chickens
Carries flavor and moisture from the cooked chicken into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Let the meat sit for the full 2 days. Acid from the vinegar penetrates the meat slowly. Using it too early means the flavor and acidity will not have fully soaked in, so the pickle will taste uneven and be less well preserved.

“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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