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Plain Chicken Broth

A simple broth made from a fat hen, water, salt, carrot, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Plain Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the chicken pieces in cold water.

  2. Place the chicken in a stewpan with water and salt.

Make the broth

  1. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  2. Add the chopped carrot and celery.

  3. Boil for about 2 hours.

  4. Strain the broth through a fine sieve or napkin.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat hen
Provides the meat and collagen that give the broth its body and flavor.
Water
Extracts flavor and gelatin from the chicken as it simmers slowly.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Celery
Adds savory, aromatic flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam after boiling. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that would cloud the broth and spoil its clean flavor if left in.

“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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