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Stewed Chicken with Rice

A stew of chicken and rice cooked together with pepper, sea salt, and parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the chicken thoroughly.

  2. Season the chicken inside and out with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Place the chicken in a stew kettle with the rice and water.

  2. Cover and cook over low heat for 2 hours.

  3. If the rice becomes too dry, add a little more water to keep it moist.

Serve

  1. Once done, serve the chicken on a dish with the rice around it.

  2. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and serve with drawn butter.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and, as it cooks, the broth that flavours the rice.
Rice
Absorbs the cooking liquid and fat, becoming tender and moist as it steams.
Water
Creates the stewing liquid that cooks the chicken gently and keeps the rice moist.

The step that matters

Keeping the rice moist. Rice absorbs liquid as it cooks and can dry out or scorch over a long, low stew. Adding a little water when it looks dry keeps the grains tender rather than hard or stuck to the kettle.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, pepper, 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.

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