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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering chicken pieces with celery, parsley, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Cut the fowl into small pieces.

  2. Discard the fat and skin unless tender.

  3. Cover the pieces with cold water.

  4. Simmer gently for six hours.

  5. Cool overnight.

  6. Remove the fat.

Make the broth

  1. Add a stalk of white celery and a stalk of parsley to a saucepan with a little salt.

  2. Add 1 pint of chicken jelly and some meat.

  3. Boil until the meat falls from the bones.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Add 1 pint of fresh milk.

  6. Bring to a boil several times.

  7. Strain into a cup.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Celery + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Older, tougher bird that becomes tender and flavorful after long, gentle simmering.
Chicken jelly (broth)
Concentrated stock that gives the finished liquid body and rich chicken flavor.
Fresh milk
Added at the end to soften the broth and give it a mild, creamy richness.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for six hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavor and gelatin from the bones and meat without toughening the proteins. A hard boil would cloud the broth and make the meat stringy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, milk. 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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