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Boiled Fowls or Chickens

A boiled fowl or chicken prepared by trussing, simmering, and optionally wrapping in floured cloth with lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,092 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Boiled Fowls or Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Choose a fowl that is not black-legged for a whiter appearance.

  2. Pick the fowl.

  3. Draw the fowl.

  4. Singe the fowl.

  5. Wash the fowl.

  6. Truss the fowl, ensuring not to break the gall-bladder.

  7. Cut off the neck, leaving enough skin to skewer it back.

  8. Cut the feet off to the first joint.

  9. Tuck the stumps into slits on each side of the belly.

  10. Twist the wings over the back.

  11. Secure them with a skewer through the body.

  12. If the fowl is large, draw the sinews of the legs.

  13. Tuck the legs in.

  14. Make a slit in the apron of the fowl.

  15. Tie a string to keep the legs in place.

Boil and finish

  1. Place the trussed fowl in a stewpan with plenty of hot water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Remove any scum that rises.

  4. Simmer gently until the fowl is tender.

  5. Remember that slower boiling yields a plumper fowl.

  6. Optionally wrap the fowl in a floured cloth with lemon slices on the breasts.

  7. Cover with buttered paper to keep the flesh white.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

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

  2. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 or fowl
Provides the main protein; long gentle simmering makes the flesh tender and moist.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the fowl is tender. A rolling boil toughens muscle proteins and makes the meat stringy and dry, while a gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps it juicy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe 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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