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Beaised Chicken

A roasted fowl braised with vegetables, salt pork, herbs, and broth, finished with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beaised Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Truss the fowl into good shape.

  2. In a pot, combine the diced carrot, turnip, onion, celery, and salt pork.

  3. Place the fowl on top of the vegetables and add more salt pork on the breast.

  4. Add the bouquet of parsley, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, salt, and hot water.

Braise

  1. Cover the pot tightly and simmer for 3 hours, adding more water if steam escapes.

Brown and serve

  1. Once done, rub butter over the breast, dredge with flour, and brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes.

  2. Strain the braising liquid.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Thicken with browned butter and flour if necessary.

  5. Serve as sauce with the chicken.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Forms the main dish; long gentle braising makes the meat tender and moist.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the chicken and the braising liquid.
Flour
Dredged on the breast for browning and later thickens the sauce with browned butter.
Butter
Rubbed on the breast to promote browning and add richness.
Carrot, turnip, onion, celery
Aromatic vegetables that flavor the braising liquid and form a bed under the bird.

The step that matters

Cover the pot tightly and simmer. Simmering gently over a long period breaks down connective tissue for tender meat. A tight lid traps moisture so the liquid does not reduce too far, and topping up water keeps the bird from drying out.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, celery, pork, parsley, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, celery, pork, parsley, 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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