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Chicken Jelly or Broth

A clear chicken broth or gelatin made by simmering chicken, seasoning, and adding egg white to set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Jelly or Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Cut the chicken into small pieces and cover with cold water.

  2. Heat very slowly and simmer until the meat is tender.

  3. Strain the broth and let it cool; remove the fat.

Clarify and season

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Add the shell and egg white, then cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Skim and strain through a fine towel or napkin.

Serve

  1. Pour into cups and cool if making jelly; add small cubes of breast meat if desired.

  2. Serve hot without clearing if making broth.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 body, and releases flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers.
Cold water
Starts the extraction gently, so flavors release gradually as the water heats.
Egg white
Coagulates as it heats and traps fine particles, helping to clarify the broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the savory flavor of the broth.

The step that matters

Heat very slowly and simmer. A rolling boil breaks up the meat and fat into the liquid, making the broth cloudy and greasy. Gentle heat keeps it clear and lets flavor develop slowly.

“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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