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For Cold Chicken

A broth made from cold chicken, vegetables, and herbs, finished with mushrooms and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

For Cold Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Remove the meat from the cold chicken and cut it into neat pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the chicken bones and 1 pint of white stock.

  3. Add the sliced carrot, peeled onion, and washed celery to the stewpan.

  4. Include the bouquet garni, clove, peppercorns, and mace.

  5. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

  6. Strain the stock into a basin.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Prepare the mushrooms by cutting off the ends, washing, and peeling them.

  2. In a clean stewpan, melt ½ ounce of butter and add the mushrooms.

  3. Squeeze in the lemon juice and add the cold water.

  4. Bring the mushrooms to a boil, then remove from heat and transfer to a plate.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat for the dish and the bones that give the broth its body and flavour.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the broth, carrying the flavours of the aromatics.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the mushrooms while they cook.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender, meaty texture to the finished dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mushrooms and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Strain the stock into a basin. Straining removes the cooked vegetables, bones and spices so the broth is clear and free of fragments. Skipping or rushing this leaves a cloudy, gritty result.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, clove):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, clove. 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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