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Boiled Chickens

Boiled whole chickens with optional pork, seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, marjoram, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Boiled Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the chickens thoroughly and prepare to boil them.

Make the stuffing

  1. For stuffing, mix finely chopped chicken meat, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, mace, sweet marjoram, butter, and 2 eggs.

  2. Stuff the chickens with the mixture if desired.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the chickens in water for 1 to 2 hours, depending on their size and age.

  2. If desired, add a pair of pork to the pot for flavor.

  3. Serve the boiled chickens as is or with a side of pork.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Chickens
Provide the main protein, and their meat and juices flavor the boiling water.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, onion, carrot, pepper, marjoram, butter. 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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