Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Chickens Whole

A stew of a whole chicken filled with oysters, cooked with water, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Stew Chickens Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Clean the chicken as for roasting, then wash it thoroughly and dry it with a clean towel.

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

  3. Rinse the oysters in water and remove any shell particles.

  4. Fill the chicken with as many oysters as it will hold, then skewer it tightly.

Stew

  1. Combine the chicken with 3 cups of water in a stew kettle and stir in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  2. Set the kettle over low heat and let it stew for 1.5 to 2 hours, keeping the kettle covered.

  3. Season the gravy with salt, black pepper, cayenne, and a small blade of mace.

  4. Ensure the gravy does not scorch.

Serve

  1. Place the chicken in a deep dish.

  2. Garnish with sprigs of parsley before serving hot.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Chicken + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together972 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish and releases juices and flavor into the stewing liquid.
Oysters
Add briny, savory flavor and tender texture as they cook inside the chicken.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid into a gravy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Keep the gravy from scorching. Flour-thickened liquid sticks and burns on the bottom of a pot when heated too hard or left uncovered without stirring. Low, steady heat with the lid on keeps the gravy smooth and prevents off, burnt flavors.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, oyster, flour, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, oyster, flour, parsley. 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