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Chicken Broth

A clear chicken broth made by simmering a whole fowl with spices, then thickened with vermicelli and finished with egg yolk and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Allspice and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,083 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the cut fowl in a pot with cold water, peppercorns, allspice, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for four hours until the chicken is in shreds.

  3. Strain the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, thicken with a little vermicelli.

  2. Before serving, whisk the egg yolk with lemon juice and stir into 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Old fowl
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers slowly.
Egg yolk
Enriches the broth and gives it a smoother, richer body when stirred in.
Vermicelli
Adds starch and body to thicken the broth if desired.

The step that matters

Simmering the broth gently. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the broth clear and prevents the fat and proteins from emulsifying into it, giving a cleaner flavor.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon. 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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