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Chicken Bouillon

A clear chicken broth made by simmering chicken, onion, celery, and egg whites, then strained and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a large pot with the cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil slowly, then simmer gently for 3 hours until the meat is tender.

  3. Add the sliced onion and celery, and simmer for an additional hour.

Chill and strain

  1. Transfer the broth to a bowl and chill for several hours.

  2. Once chilled, remove the fat from the surface and strain out the bones.

  3. If the broth is jellied, heat it gently to melt the jelly.

  4. Strain the broth through coarse muslin without squeezing the bag.

Clarify and season

  1. Heat the strained broth until lukewarm, then add the unbeaten egg white and broken shell.

  2. Stir to a quick boil and strain again through muslin, seasoning to taste.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers.
Egg white
Its proteins coagulate and trap cloudy particles, clarifying the broth.
Egg shell
Adds fine particles that help catch impurities when the broth is clarified.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth during the final simmer.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg white into the broth and bringing it to a quick boil. Egg white proteins must be whisked into the lukewarm broth before heating so they rise and trap cloudy particles. Stirring too gently or boiling too long can leave the broth cloudy or let the proteins break apart and cloud it again.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, egg, 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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