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Stewed Chicken

A chicken stew simmered with milk, water, celery, and seasonings, thickened with flour and finished with egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a saucepan and cover with milk and water.

  2. Add the finely shredded celery.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend the flour with a little cold milk or water, then strain it into the stew.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring to keep it smooth.

  3. Add the egg yolk and season with pepper and salt before serving.

  4. Optionally, omit the flour and stir in 2 tablespoons of cream mixed with the egg yolk.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Chicken
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly body-rich stew as it heats.
Egg yolk
Enriches the stew and thickens it slightly when heated gently.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, stirring to keep it smooth. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump if not stirred, leaving lumps. Stirring disperses the starch so it thickens evenly. Egg yolk should be added off the heat or gently, since high heat can curdle it.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, flour, egg, pepper. 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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