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Chicken Broth

A broth made by simmering chicken pieces in water with salt, optionally adding rice, toast, or celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the bones of the chicken well.

  2. Combine the chicken pieces and cold water in a pot.

Make the broth

  1. Cook slowly until the chicken is tender.

  2. Add the salt to help extract the juices.

  3. Remove from heat and strain the broth.

  4. The next day, skim off the fat.

Serve

  1. Reheat the broth and add rice if desired, or serve with toast and celery.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and bones that release flavor and body into the broth as it simmers.
Cold water
Serves as the cooking liquid that slowly extracts collagen and flavor from the chicken.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the broth and helps draw flavorful juices out of the chicken.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the chicken is tender. Gentle simmering keeps the broth clear and extracts gelatin and flavor gradually, while a hard boil makes it cloudy and greasy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Corianderfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice. 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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