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Boiled Chickens

A simple boiled chicken dish served with optional sauces such as celery, oyster, or egg sauce, and optional boiled tongue or ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Boiled Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fold the chickens in a clean white cloth and place them in a large stewpan.

  2. Cover the chickens with boiling water and boil gently.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

Cook and serve

  1. Let the chickens simmer slowly for 1 to 1.25 hours until cooked through.

  2. Transfer the chickens to a hot dish and pour sauce over them.

  3. Serve additional sauce in a separate boat.

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. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + hamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist as they simmer gently.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum that rises to the surface. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities released as the liquid heats. Removing it keeps the broth clear and the flavour clean.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham. 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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