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To Stew Chickens Whole

A whole chicken stewed with oysters, finished with a butter, egg yolk, cream, parsley, and cornstarch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

To Stew Chickens Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the chicken as for roasting and wash it thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Wipe the chicken dry with a clean towel.

  3. Season the chicken inside and outside with salt and pepper.

  4. Remove oysters from their liquor, drain them in a colander, and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Fill the chicken with the seasoned oysters and skewer it tightly.

Cook

  1. Place the chicken in a tin pail with a closely fitting top and put the pail into a pot of boiling water.

  2. Boil the chicken until it is tender.

  3. Remove the chicken to a hot dish and cover it to keep warm.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Turn the gravy from the pail into a saucepan.

  2. Add butter, chopped egg yolks, cream, minced parsley, and cornstarch mixed with a little cold milk to the saucepan.

  3. Boil the sauce once.

  4. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve very hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently until tender in the steaming pail.
Oysters
Stuffed inside the chicken, they add a briny flavour that seasons the meat as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and give it a smooth, thick, velvety body when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce when it is brought to a boil.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce once. Cornstarch thickens only when it reaches a boil, so the sauce must be brought to a boil to set properly. Egg yolks can curdle if overheated, so keep the heat controlled once it has thickened.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, oyster, butter, egg, cream, milk. 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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