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Jellied Chicken

A chilled chicken dish set in gelatin with parsley and sliced eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Jellied Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the chicken in salted water until tender.

  2. Remove the chicken and boil the broth until only 1 quart remains.

  3. Pick the meat from the bones and skin into small shreds.

  4. Soak the gelatin in enough cold water to cover it for 30 minutes.

  5. If the broth is not salty enough, add more salt.

  6. Add pepper, parsley, and the dissolved gelatin, stirring well.

  7. Add the shredded chicken. Mix everything together.

Layer and set

  1. Wet a square mold with cold water.

  2. Layer chicken in the mold. Layer sliced eggs. Repeat until you have about 3 layers of chicken and 2 layers of eggs.

  3. Refrigerate until hardened.

  4. 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat that is shredded and layered through the set gelatine.
Chicken broth
Carries the flavor and, once reduced and set with gelatine, forms the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the broth into a firm jelly that holds the layers together when sliced.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds texture and contrast in the sliced layers of the jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolve and stir the gelatine into the warm broth. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the broth before layering, or it will set in clumps or unevenly, and the layers will not hold together when sliced.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Garlicfits less well

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