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Stewed Chicken

A stew of chicken pieces, head, and feet simmered in water, finished with milk, egg, flour, butter, herbs, and served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken pieces, head, and feet in weak saltwater.

  2. Place the chicken in a saucepan and cover with water.

  3. Let it simmer slowly for one hour.

  4. Remove the chicken with a fork and place it in a bowl.

  5. Add ½ cup milk and ½ teaspoon black pepper to the cooking liquid.

  6. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  7. Strain the liquid over the chicken.

  8. Rinse the saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Return the strained liquid to the heat.

  2. Beat 1 egg with 1 tablespoon flour and 1 tablespoon milk until smooth.

  3. Stir the mixture into the saucepan.

  4. Add minced parsley, thyme, and a little onion.

  5. Stir in 1 tablespoon butter.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over small pieces of toast arranged in a dish.

  2. Garnish with curled parsley.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the sauce as it heats and gives it a smooth, rich body.
Flour
Stabilises the egg mixture so it thickens smoothly rather than curdling.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the sauce, mellowing the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Chicken
Gives the broth its body and flavour as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the hot liquid. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the liquid is too hot or added too quickly, the egg can curdle instead of thickening smoothly. Thinning the egg with flour and milk first and stirring constantly helps keep it smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, pepper, egg, flour, parsley, thyme):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, pepper, egg, flour, parsley, thyme. 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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