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Chicken, Braise, with New Carrots

A braised chicken cooked with carrots, onions, butter, and broth, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken, Braise, with New Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Braise

  1. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until translucent.

  3. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then add it to the pot. Brown the chicken on all sides.

  4. Pour in the chicken broth and add the sliced carrots. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 1 hour or until the chicken is tender.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with fresh herbs if desired.

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

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Browning builds savory flavor, and slow cooking in liquid keeps the meat moist and tender.
Carrots
Add sweetness and a firm texture that holds up during long simmering.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming a flavor base for the braise.
Chicken broth
Provides liquid for gentle simmering and carries savory flavor into the meat and carrots.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the onion soften and brown lightly.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken on all sides. Dry, well-browned surfaces develop deep flavor through the Maillard reaction. Crowded or wet chicken steams instead of browning, leaving the braise bland and pale.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion, 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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