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Chicken Broth a LA Chiffonade

A light chicken broth flavored with leeks, herbs, and chiffonade of lettuce, sorrel, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Broth a LA Chiffonade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken broth

  1. Cut the fowl into small pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, heat 2 oz. of butter and add the chicken pieces, seasoning with salt and pepper. Fry until slightly browned.

  3. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam.

  4. Add a small bunch of parsley, the bouquet garni, and the prepared leeks. Simmer gently for about 2 hours.

Make the chiffonade

  1. Wash the sorrel, chervil, and lettuce, using only the tender leaves. Cut these vegetables into very fine strips.

  2. In another stewpan, combine the vegetables with 1 oz. of butter and stir gently over heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Add some of the broth to the vegetable mixture. Skim. Cook for about 15 minutes.

  4. Strain the remaining broth into the vegetable mixture. Season to taste.

Serve

  1. Place neat pieces of chicken in a tureen.

  2. Pour in the soup.

  3. Serve as hot as possible.

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 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

Fowl
Provides the meat and flavour that give the broth its body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when frying the chicken and softening the greens.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the broth.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Sorrel
Adds a sharp, lemony acidity to the finished soup.
Lettuce
Adds tender body and a mild, fresh vegetable flavour to the chiffonade.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth after boiling. Foam rising during the first boil contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and taste bitter if left in, so removing it keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, leek, parsley, lettuce, sorrel, chervil, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, leek, parsley, lettuce, sorrel, chervil, pepper. 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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