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Stewed Chicken

A chicken stew cooked slowly in water, seasoned with salt and pepper, thickened with flour and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,389 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Dress, clean, and cut up the chicken.

  2. Put the chicken into a stew pan and cover with boiling water.

  3. Cover and boil rapidly for a few minutes.

Stew

  1. Reduce the temperature and cook below the boiling point until tender, about 1 to 3 hours for a year-old fowl, or 3 hours or longer for older chickens.

  2. One-half hour before serving, season with salt and fresh ground pepper.

  3. When the chicken is tender, drain it from the pan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir a thickening of flour mixed smooth with milk or cream into the broth.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Dumplings or noodles may be cooked in the 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. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 that becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly body-rich gravy when cooked.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the thickened broth.

The step that matters

Simmer below the boiling point. Rapid boiling toughens muscle fibres and can make the meat stringy and dry. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, so the chicken becomes tender and the broth stays clear.

“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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