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Very Strengthening Chicken-Broth

A nourishing chicken broth made by simmering chickens, water, salt, pepper, and optional rice, vermicelli, vegetables, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 774 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Very Strengthening Chicken-Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut down and bruise the chickens.

  2. Put them in a saucepan with water.

  3. Simmer until the juice is fully extracted.

  4. Press the mixture, strain, and return the soup to the saucepan.

Season and finish

  1. Add salt, whole pepper, and rice or vermicelli if desired.

  2. Optionally, boil a whole chicken in the soup and serve it.

  3. In spring, add young vegetables, parsley, and chervil if available.

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. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + cherviltop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cock chickens
Provide the main flavour and body of the broth as their juices are extracted.
Water
Carries the flavour from the chickens and forms the body of the broth.
Rice or vermicelli
Optional starch that adds bulk and soft texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the juice is fully extracted. Gentle simmering draws flavour and gelatin from the chicken into the water slowly. A hard boil can cloud the broth and make it greasy, so keep the liquid at a low, steady simmer.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, rice, chervil):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, rice, chervil. 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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