Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Broth

A simple broth made by simmering chicken pieces in water, optionally thickened with rice, barley, or sago and flavored with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Broth

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces and break the bones.

  2. Add the chicken to a pot with 1 pint of water.

  3. Simmer until the broth is flavorful.

  4. Optionally, add boiled rice, barley, or sago to thicken the broth.

  5. Add a little parsley for flavor if desired.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Releases flavor, gelatin and body into the water as it simmers, giving the broth its savory character.
Boiled rice, barley, or sago
Optional starch that thickens the broth slightly as it cooks and absorbs liquid.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice. 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.

More chicken broth recipes

You might also like