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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering a whole chicken with onion, celery, carrot, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the onion, celery, and parsley, leaving the carrot whole.

Simmer and serve

  1. In a large pot, combine the chicken, minced vegetables, and enough water to cover.

  2. Simmer for one hour.

  3. Remove the carrot and discard.

  4. Thicken the broth slightly if desired.

  5. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Releases flavor and gelatin from meat, bones, and connective tissue, giving the broth body.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens and releases its flavor into the liquid.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, aromatic background flavor to the simmering liquid.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth while it simmers.
Parsley
Adds a bright, herbal aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. A gentle simmer lets fat and impurities rise and separate while flavor and gelatin extract slowly. A hard boil emulsifies fat into the liquid, making the broth cloudy and greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, carrot, parsley, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, carrot, parsley, pepper. 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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