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Chicken Bouillon

A clear chicken stock made by simmering a chicken, soup bone, ham, herbs, and spices, then clarified with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Chicken Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the chicken, soup bone, and ham slowly in 1 gallon of cold water for 5 hours.

  2. Add the soup bunch and cloves during the last hour of cooking.

  3. Strain the soup through a flannel bag.

  4. Let the strained soup sit overnight.

Clarify and color

  1. Remove all the fat and jelly, avoiding any sediment.

  2. Mix the jelly with the beaten egg whites and shells.

  3. Boil the mixture quickly for a couple of minutes.

  4. Skim carefully.

  5. Strain through a jelly bag.

  6. Add 2 teaspoons of caramel for coloring.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup bone
Releases gelatin and body into the water, giving the stock its richness.
Chicken
Adds meat flavor and gelatin-rich connective tissue to the broth.
Egg whites and shells
Trap suspended particles as they cook, so the strained stock turns clear.

The step that matters

Boil the egg white mixture quickly, then skim carefully. Egg whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles as they set; boiling briefly lifts them to the surface, where skimming removes them. Letting it boil too long or stirring can break the raft and leave the stock cloudy.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, pepper, egg. 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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