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Broth, Chicken Pectoral

A broth made from a whole chicken, pearl barley, rice, and honey, simmered for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Broth, Chicken Pectoral

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the chicken as usual.

Make the broth

  1. Place the chicken in a saucepan with water, pearl barley, rice, and honey.

  2. Boil the mixture, skimming regularly, for 3 hours until reduced to two-thirds.

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. Barley + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Chicken + barleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Rice + honeytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together542 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Barley + honeytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the meat and flavour that make up the body of the broth.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during long simmering.
Rice
Adds starch that gives the broth more body as it cooks down.
Honey
Adds sweetness and helps the broth taste rounded.

The step that matters

Skimming during the boil. Regular skimming removes foam and fat that would otherwise cloud the broth and give it a greasy taste. Over three hours of simmering, these impurities keep rising to the surface, so skimming keeps the broth 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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