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Stewed Chicken

A stew of chicken, pickled pork, onions, carrot, and celery simmered in water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Stew

  1. In a large pot, combine the quartered chicken, pickled pork, onions, carrot, and celery.

  2. Cover with water and stew until the chicken is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the vegetables from the pot.

  2. Dice the pork finely and return it to the pot.

  3. Thicken the broth, season with coarse sea salt and black 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.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing in liquid.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savory flavor that seasons the broth as it stews.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the broth.
Carrot
Releases natural sugars into the broth, adding mild sweetness.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor to the broth during stewing.

The step that matters

Stew until the chicken is tender. Collagen in chicken connective tissue breaks down slowly at low simmering temperatures, making the meat tender. Boiling hard can toughen muscle fibers and leave the meat dry, so a gentle simmer matters.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, carrot, celery, 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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