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Stewed Chicken

A stewed chicken prepared by simmering pieces in water, thickened with flour paste, seasoned with white pepper and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,559 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a kettle and nearly cover with boiling water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender.

  3. Remove the chicken from the kettle, skin, and carefully bone it.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with a little cold water to form a paste.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling chicken broth and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the ground white pepper and coarse sea salt, stirring well.

Can and process

  1. Pack the chicken into cans and cover with the sauce.

  2. Cap, tip, and process at 250°F (120°C): 55 minutes for 1 lb. cans, 65 minutes for 2 lb. cans.

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. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Chicken + white peppertop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Flour + white peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 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
Provides the meat, which becomes tender through long simmering and holds its shape when boned.
Flour
Thickens the cooking broth into a sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Ground white pepper
Adds mild, sharp heat that seasons the sauce and the chicken.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before it goes into the boiling broth, because added dry or unmixed it clumps. Once the starch is evenly dispersed and brought to a boil, it thickens the sauce evenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour. 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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