Name: Chicken Broth
Ingredients: 1 tender chicken; 1 quart cold water; salt to taste; flour or sago (optional); 1 egg yolk (optional)

Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

Remove the skin and all fat from the chicken.
Cut the chicken in half lengthwise and remove the lungs.
Cut the halves into small pieces, including bones.

Make the broth

Place the chicken pieces in a suitable dish, add salt, and pour in cold water.
Simmer for 1.5 hours, then keep warm for an additional 30 minutes.
Strain through a sieve or coarse towel to separate the broth from the solids.

Season and serve

Season to taste and thicken with flour or sago if desired.
For added nutrition, stir in a beaten egg yolk before serving.

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.

Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,559 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,991 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 and bones that flavour the water as they simmer.
Cold water: Serves as the liquid that extracts flavour and gelatin from the chicken during simmering.
Flour or sago: Thickens the broth, giving it more body if used.
Egg yolk: Adds richness and thickening to the broth when stirred in before serving.

“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.