Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Chicken in Gelatine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the broth
Boil the veal bone with the chicken until tender.
Take a part of the broth, add vinegar, and boil with onions and spiced herbs for 10 minutes.
Set the chicken
Cut the chicken into pieces and place in a deep bowl.
Pour the hot broth and vinegar over the chicken.
Cool and serve the next day.
Alternatively, pour hot vinegar over the meat in the bowl and let it stand for an hour or longer.
Pour off the vinegar and cover the meat with enough broth.
Store on ice or in a cool place for up to a week.
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.
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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Veal + chickentop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,243 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).
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Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,226 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Chicken + vinegartop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Veal bone
- Simmers into the broth, adding body and richness that help the dish set.
- Chicken
- Provides the meat that is cooked tender and then set in the jellied broth.
- Broth
- Carries the flavour and, once chilled, forms the gelatin that holds the dish together.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and firms the meat's texture as it stands.
The step that matters
Boil the veal bone with the chicken until tender. Gelatin comes from collagen in bone and connective tissue breaking down during long, gentle simmering. If the bone is not simmered long enough, the broth will not set when cooled.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, chicken, vinegar):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Tomatofits about as well
- Mustardfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, chicken, vinegar. 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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