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Boiled Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

A boiled whole chicken wrapped in butter, seasoned, broiled, served with a mushroom sauce made from mushrooms, salt, sugar, vinegar, brandy, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Boiled Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Split the chicken down the back and press it flat.

  2. Spread butter on two sheets of white paper, each the size of the chicken.

  3. Sprinkle each with salt, pepper, and parsley.

  4. Lay the chicken on one sheet and cover with the other.

  5. Roll the edges securely to keep in the butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil over a bright fire for 30 minutes.

  2. Clean the mushrooms and place them in a saucepan with salt, sugar, vinegar, brandy, and stock.

  3. Boil quickly for 10 minutes.

  4. Remove the paper from the chicken, place it on a hot dish, pour the sauce over, and serve.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Keeps the chicken moist as it cooks and carries seasoning over the surface.
Mushrooms
Give the sauce its body and earthy flavor as they simmer in the stock.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavors of the other ingredients.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Rolling the chicken tightly in the paper. The paper wrap holds the butter against the meat so it does not run off during cooking. Loose wrapping lets the butter escape, leaving the chicken drier and less flavorful.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, parsley, mushroom, sugar, vinegar, brandy):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, parsley, mushroom, sugar, vinegar, brandy. 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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