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Chicken, Boiled

A whole chicken boiled with lemon slices, wrapped in buttered paper and floured cloth, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash the chicken in lukewarm water and truss it firmly.

  2. Place the chicken in hot water and remove any scum that rises.

  3. Let it boil, then reduce to a simmer until cooked through, about 20 to 25 minutes.

  4. Before cooking, place a few slices of lemon on the chicken's breast.

Wrap and serve

  1. Wrap the chicken in buttered paper, then in a floured cloth.

  2. Serve with sauce poured over it and additional sauce in a tureen.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender when gently simmered rather than boiled hard.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the wrapped chicken stay moist and flavourful.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that lift the mild flavour of the chicken.

The step that matters

Reduce to a gentle simmer. Once the water reaches a boil, lowering the heat to a simmer keeps muscle proteins from tightening too fast, so the chicken stays tender and juicy rather than tough and dry.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, sauce):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, sauce. 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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