Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Boiled Fowls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare the chicken as for roasting and sew it in white netting or coarse lace.
Boil
Souse the chicken four times in boiling water.
Place the chicken in a pot with cold, slightly salted water, covering it deeply.
Bring the water slowly to a boil and cook gently for 15 minutes per pound.
Serve
Serve with hot butter, salted and peppered, poured over the chicken and the rest in a separate dish.
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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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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; gentle simmering keeps the meat tender and moist.
- Hot butter
- Adds richness and fat to the finished chicken, carrying flavour across the meat.
The step that matters
Bringing the water to a boil slowly. Starting the chicken in cold water and heating gradually lets the heat penetrate evenly and keeps the proteins from tightening. Rapid boiling toughens the meat and can leave the outside overcooked before the centre is done.
“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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