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Broth, Chicken Pectoral

A chicken broth made with 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

  1. Prepare the chicken in the usual way.

  2. Place the chicken in a saucepan with 2½ pints of water.

  3. Add 2 ounces of pearl barley, 2 ounces of rice, and 2 ounces of honey.

  4. Boil together, skimming well 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 and adds body as its starch releases during simmering.
Rice
Adds starch that gives the broth a fuller, thicker texture.
Honey
Adds sweetness that balances the savoury chicken flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming during the long boil. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that rise to the surface, keeping the broth clear and free of a greasy or bitter taste. Skimming is most needed early in the simmer, before the liquid reduces.

“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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