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To Boil Chicken

A boiled chicken served with a sauce made from butter, flour, broth, vinegar, salt, and finely chopped giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Boil Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the chicken

  1. Boil a well-grown chicken in a pot.

  2. If the chicken is tough, add 1 tablespoon vinegar to the water.

  3. For old chickens, consider steaming to make them tender.

  4. If serving whole, stuff the chicken with bread dressing and tie it in shape.

  5. Cover the chicken with boiling water, add vinegar and 1 tablespoon salt.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. Once tender, prepare the sauce by melting 1 tablespoon butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Gradually add 1 cup chicken broth, stirring until smooth.

  4. Add finely chopped giblets to the sauce.

  5. If desired, place the chicken in the oven to brown.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Vinegar + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat that is cooked tender by simmering in water.
Butter
Melts with flour to form the base of the sauce, adding richness.
Flour
Thickens the butter and broth into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Chicken broth
Adds liquid and savoury flavour to the sauce as it thickens.
Vinegar
Acidity in the cooking water that helps tenderise tough chicken.

The step that matters

Stirring in the broth gradually. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smooth instead of lumpy.

“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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