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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made from chicken parts, flour, water, salt, pepper, parsley, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

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 ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the neck, lower parts of the legs, and wing tips of the chicken in a kettle.

  2. Dredge the chicken parts with flour.

  3. Add 1 pint of cold water.

  4. Let soak for 45 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Simmer slowly with the kettle covered until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. Strain the broth.

  3. Return the strained broth to the stove.

  4. Add 1 cup more water to the bones.

  5. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.

  6. Combine this liquid with the broth.

  7. Season with salt, pepper, and minced parsley to taste.

Serve

  1. Brown the toasted bread squares in the oven.

  2. Serve with the browned bread squares.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken neck, legs and wing tips
Provide meat, bone and connective tissue that give the broth body and flavour as they cook.
Flour
Dredging the chicken lightly coats the pieces, helping the broth thicken slightly and turn richer.
Cold water
Extracts flavour and gelatin from the bones as it heats slowly, forming the broth base.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with the kettle covered. A gentle, covered simmer draws flavour and gelatin out of the bones while keeping the broth clear. A hard boil makes it cloudy and greasy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, bread. 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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