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Chicken Sandwiches

A sandwich made with tender stewed chicken, seasoned with salt and optional herbs, served between slices of good bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,258 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Stew the chicken until very tender.

  2. Season with a little coarse sea salt.

Press and set

  1. Remove the bones and pack the meat firmly in a deep dish, mixing white and dark meat together.

  2. Pour the broth over the meat until it is just covered.

  3. Once cold, cut into smooth slices.

Assemble

  1. If desired, sprinkle with marjoram or sage and place between slices of good bread.

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. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  2. Marjoram + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  3. Chicken + marjoramtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together346 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing and sets firm when chilled.
Broth (in the method)
Keeps the packed meat moist and helps it bind into a sliceable block as it cools.
Good bread
Supplies the sandwich base and a contrasting soft texture against the firm chicken slices.

The step that matters

Pack the meat firmly. Loose meat will not hold together when chilled, so firm packing lets the gelatin from the broth bind it into smooth slices that do not crumble.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramthe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread. 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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