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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering chicken, optional vegetables, and thickening with arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Skin and cut the chicken into pieces.

  2. Place the chicken in a pot with 1 quart of water and boil slowly until the meat is tender.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Return the strained liquid to the pot.

Add vegetables or thicken

  1. If using vegetables, add slices of turnip, parsnip, potato, and onion.

  2. Cook the vegetables until tender, then strain them out.

  3. If no vegetables are used, thicken the broth with 2 tablespoons of arrowroot.

Stew the white meat

  1. Cut the white meat off the bones.

  2. Stew the white meat slowly in butter.

  3. Optionally, add a beaten egg to the stew.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Arrowroot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Arrowroot + parsniptop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and flavour that the water turns into a savory broth.
Arrowroot
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly viscous liquid when used without vegetables.
Butter
Enriches the white meat with fat, adding richness and a softer texture as it stews.
Egg
Adds body and richness to the stew when beaten in as an optional addition.

The step that matters

Boil the chicken slowly until tender. Gentle simmering lets collagen and connective tissue break down slowly, giving tender meat and a clear broth. A hard boil toughens the meat and clouds the liquid.

Swap the turnip

The recipe marks turnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, arrowroot, parsnip, potato, onion, butter, meat):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, arrowroot, parsnip, potato, onion, butter, meat. 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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