Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Jellied Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Boil the fowl until the meat slips easily from the bones.
Reduce the water to about 1 cup while boiling.
Remove the meat from the bones in good-sized pieces, discarding gristle, fat, and bones.
Set the jelly
Place the meat in a wet mold.
Skim the fat from the cooking liquid.
Add butter, salt, and pepper to the liquid.
Dissolve the gelatine in the hot liquid and pour it over the chicken.
Season the liquid well, as the chicken will absorb the flavors.
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.
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fowl
- Provides the meat that is set in the jelly and the stock that gives the flavor.
- Gelatine
- Sets the cooking liquid into a firm jelly that holds the chicken pieces together.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the cooking liquid.
The step that matters
Season the liquid well. Chilling dulls perceived saltiness and the chicken absorbs flavor from the liquid around it, so under-seasoned liquid leaves the finished dish bland.
“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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