Skip to main content
Main

Fowl Stewed with Rice

A stew of young hen cooked with veal broth, mace, onions, and rice, served with bechamel sauce and puff pastry garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fowl Stewed with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Truss the pullet as for boiling.

  2. Stew the pullet in veal broth until tender and the liquid is nearly reduced.

  3. Add mace and sliced onions while stewing.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash and pick the rice.

  2. Boil the rice until half done.

  3. Drain the rice.

  4. Mix the drained rice with fresh butter, Cayenne pepper, and salt.

  5. Simmer the rice mixture until fully cooked.

Plate and serve

  1. Place the fowl in the center of a dish.

  2. Top the fowl with rice.

  3. Serve with bechamel sauce over the rice.

  4. Garnish with leaves of baked puff pastry around the dish.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Pullet
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing in broth.
Veal broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor as it reduces around the stewing bird.
Rice
Forms the starchy base that absorbs butter and seasoning as it finishes cooking.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the rice and giving it a silky texture.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice mixture until fully cooked. Rice boiled only to half done must finish gently in butter so the grains soften fully without drying or scorching. Too much heat can burn the butter and stick the rice to the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, rice, butter, pepper, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, rice, butter, pepper, sauce. 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

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes