Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Broth for the Sick or Invalid

A simple chicken broth made with chicken, water, lettuce, leek, celery, sorrel, chervil, and salt, served over toasted bread or as directed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Broth for the Sick or Invalid

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the chicken in a crockery pan with cold water.

  2. Set over moderate heat and add lettuce, leek, celery, sorrel, chervil, and salt.

  3. Skim the surface before boiling.

  4. Let it boil gently for about 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the broth and serve over toasted bread or as directed by a physician.

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean chicken
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savour.
Cold water
Acts as the cooking liquid, slowly extracting flavour from the chicken and vegetables.
Lettuce
Adds mild, gentle sweetness and a delicate vegetable note to the broth.
Leek
Contributes a mild onion-like aroma and subtle sweetness to the broth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savoury aroma that rounds out the broth's flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the surface before boiling. Starting from cold water, impurities and coagulated proteins rise to the surface as it heats. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or scummy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lettuce, leek, sorrel, chervil):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lettuce, leek, sorrel, chervil. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes