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Stewed Chicken

A simple stew of chicken, rice, carrot, onion, and potato simmered in water with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, and cut up the chicken.

Stew

  1. Place the chicken in a kettle with boiling water, rice, carrot, onion, and potato.

  2. Cover and stew for 1 hour.

  3. If the chicken is old, stew longer.

  4. When nearly done, season with salt, pepper, and butter.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory meat flavor that the broth takes on as it stews.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the stew slightly as the starch releases during cooking.
Potato
Releases starch that adds body to the broth and makes the stew more filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavor of the finished broth.

The step that matters

Seasoning near the end. Salt added early can toughen meat and concentrate as liquid reduces, so seasoning when nearly done lets you judge the broth's flavor accurately.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, onion, potato, pepper, butter. 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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