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Pickled Chicken

Pickled chicken is preserved by boiling, then marinating in cider vinegar, water, and spices for two days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pickled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. Place the meat in a stone jar.

Pickle

  1. Pour the cold cider vinegar and the boiling water over the meat.

  2. Add spices to taste.

  3. Let the mixture stand for two days.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Chicken + cidertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Chicken + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that is pickled and softened by the cooking liquid.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the meat and gives the pickled flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar and boiling water over the meat. The acid needs to penetrate the meat evenly. Pouring the vinegar cold while the water is boiling keeps the mixture warm enough to help the meat absorb the liquid, so the pickle is consistent throughout the jar.

“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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