Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓
Boiled Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Dress and clean the chicken.
Place the chicken in a kettle of boiling water deep enough to cover it.
Add the bacon and boil together.
Skim the surface carefully as it begins to cook.
Simmer
Reduce heat.
Simmer gently for 3 hours or more until the chicken is tender.
Add the rice and milk to keep the chicken looking white.
Keep the chicken submerged with an inverted deep plate.
Add more salt if needed about 30 minutes before finishing.
Finish and serve
Transfer the chicken to a hot dish.
Reduce the cooking liquid to just over 1 pint.
Skim off all fat from the liquid.
Add chopped parsley, celery, thyme, and optional chopped hard-boiled eggs.
Serve in a sauce bowl.
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.
-
Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,810 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,193 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,769 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
-
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering.
- Fat bacon
- Adds fat and savory flavor to the cooking liquid, enriching the broth.
- Rice
- Added to the pot to help keep the chicken looking white during cooking.
- Milk
- Added to the pot to help keep the chicken looking white during cooking.
The step that matters
Simmer gently rather than boiling hard. Low, gentle heat over three hours or more lets connective tissue break down slowly, so the chicken becomes tender without toughening or falling apart. A hard boil would toughen the meat and cloud the liquid.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, milk, parsley, thyme, egg):
- Marjoramfits better
- Tarragonfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, milk, parsley, thyme, 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.
More boiled chicken recipes
You might also like
Chicken Broth257 recipes
Chicken Soup156 recipes
Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes
Creamed Chicken89 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.