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Braised Chicken with Macaroni

A braised chicken served with macaroni and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,031 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Braised Chicken with Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Singe the chicken.

  2. Draw the chicken.

  3. Clean the chicken.

  4. Truss the chicken as for roasting.

Braise the chicken

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chicken.

  3. Turn until golden brown on all sides.

  4. Braise the chicken for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on its age.

Cook the macaroni and sauce

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted boiling water for 20 minutes until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni.

  3. Remove the chicken to a hot dish.

  4. Strain the sauce.

  5. Return the sauce to the heat.

  6. Add the macaroni.

  7. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until moistened.

Serve

  1. Serve the macaroni around the chicken.

  2. Pour some sauce over it.

  3. Serve the rest separately.

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 + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

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, and braising in butter and liquid keeps it moist and tender.
Butter
Fat that browns the chicken's surface and adds richness to the pan.
Macaroni
Starch that absorbs the sauce and becomes soft and flavorful when simmered in it.

The step that matters

Turn the chicken until golden brown on all sides. Browning the surface before braising builds deep flavor through the Maillard reaction, and the sauce made from the pan depends on it. Pale chicken yields a flatter-tasting sauce.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter. 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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