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Boiled Chickens

A boiled whole chicken served with a butter, egg yolk, and parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Boiled Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and truss the chickens without stuffing them.

  2. Wrap each chicken in a piece of mosquito netting.

Boil and finish

  1. Boil in plenty of hot salted water for about 12 minutes per pound.

  2. Remove the netting and wipe the chickens.

  3. Rub the chickens all over with butter.

  4. In a cup, mix melted butter with the pounded yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and minced parsley.

  5. Pour a few spoonfuls of the mixture over the chickens before serving.

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 + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main cooked protein, which firms as the meat heats through during boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist coating to the chicken skin.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their pounded, rich texture thickens the butter sauce and adds creamy body.

The step that matters

Boil for the correct time per pound. Boiling for too long toughens the meat and dries it out, while too little time leaves the chicken undercooked near the bone. Timing by weight keeps the meat tender and safe.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, egg. 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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