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Jellied Chicken

A chilled chicken dish set in gelatin with mushrooms, lemon, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Jellied Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Cut up the chicken and cover it with cold water.

  2. Add a little salt, onion, and celery, then boil slowly until tender.

  3. Remove the chicken from the water.

  4. Take out the bones and cut the meat into small pieces.

  5. Add the can of mushrooms to the chicken.

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in water.

  2. Stir it into the chicken cooking water.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Pour it over the chicken and mushrooms.

  5. Add lemon juice, grated lemon rind, salt, pepper, and parsley to taste.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  2. Set it in ice.

  3. Once set firmly, turn it out onto a platter.

  4. Garnish with lemon slices and 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat that forms the body of the dish, cooked tender and then set in jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the cooking liquid into a firm jelly so the dish holds its shape when turned out.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and soft texture among the pieces of chicken.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury jelly.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture before pouring it over the chicken. Straining removes bits of onion, celery and cooked debris from the liquid, leaving a clear, smooth jelly. Gelatine must be fully dissolved first, or it can set unevenly and leave a grainy texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, mushroom, lemon, pepper, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, mushroom, lemon, pepper, parsley. 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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