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Pulled Chicken

Pulled chicken simmered in cream, lemon, mace, cayenne, and spices, then broiled and served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pulled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil or braise the fowl until three-quarters cooked, then let it cool.

  2. Remove the skin and cut the white meat into strips.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the meat with cream, lemon peel, mace, Cayenne pepper, salt, shallot, lemon juice, and consomme.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and water, then simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

Broil and serve

  1. Score the legs and rump.

  2. Season the scored legs and rump with pepper and salt.

  3. Broil the seasoned legs and rump until cooked.

  4. Serve the broiled pieces over the pulled chicken.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the meat that is cooked, shredded into strips and served in the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce that clings to the meat.
Shallot
Adds a mild, savoury onion flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich cream sauce.
Consomme
Adds concentrated savoury meat flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour and water, then simmer over low heat. Flour must be fully hydrated and cooked gently so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw starchy taste. Simmering on low heat avoids scorching and curdling the cream when acid is present.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, lemon, pepper, shallot, flour):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, lemon, pepper, shallot, flour. 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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