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Boned Chicken

A whole chicken is boned, stuffed with eggs, allspice, tongue, mushrooms, chopped meat, and aspic jelly, then simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Boned Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Open the chicken on the back and dress it.

  2. Remove the bones using a Hull knife and a sharp knife.

  3. Cut off about 1 inch from the legs and scrape out the bones.

  4. Cut off the tip of the wing and remove the bone, leaving the second joint.

  5. Lay in pieces of breast, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Stuff and sew

  1. Add 2 hard boiled eggs, 6 allspice, bits of tongue, ½ dozen mushrooms, and enough chopped chicken or veal to fill the chicken.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of Aspic jelly, leaving room for expansion.

  3. Sew the chicken up and tie it in a napkin.

Cook and serve

  1. Place it in a kettle with a saucer underneath to prevent burning.

  2. Cover with soup stock and cook until tender, about 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Slice and serve cold.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Allspice + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together717 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body and provides the meat that becomes tender during simmering.
Hard boiled eggs
Add firm, sliced richness and body to the stuffing filling.
Mushrooms
Add earthy moisture and savory flavor to the stuffing.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a gel when chilled, giving the cold slices structure and moisture.

The step that matters

Leave room for expansion when adding the Aspic jelly. Filling the cavity too tightly leaves no space for the stuffing to expand as it heats, which can split the sewn chicken open during simmering.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, egg, mushroom. 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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