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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering an old chicken with water, salt, peppercorns, onion, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken apart at the joints and remove as much fat as possible.

  2. Cover the chicken with cold water and let it stand for 30 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Place the chicken on the stove and heat slowly.

  2. Add salt, peppercorns, and the onion when heating.

  3. Simmer until the meat is cooked from the bones.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the broth before serving.

  2. Remove the fat and add a little well-cooked rice.

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

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Old chicken
Provides the meat and bones that give the broth its body and flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Peppercorns
Contribute a mild, sharp aroma that flavors the broth.
Well-cooked rice
Adds starch and softness, thickening the broth and making it more filling.

The step that matters

Heat slowly and simmer gently. Bringing the chicken up to heat slowly and keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer, rather than a rolling boil, lets the collagen and flavor release from the bones while keeping the broth clear. Boiling hard makes it cloudy and greasy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe 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.

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