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To Boil Chickens

Boiled chickens served with a sauce of stock, butter, flour, mushrooms, egg yolks, cream, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Boil Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Soak the chickens in skim milk for 2 hours.

  2. Truss the chickens.

  3. Singe the chickens.

  4. Dust the chickens with flour.

  5. Cover the chickens in cold water.

  6. Set the pan over low heat.

  7. Remove scum from the pan.

  8. Boil gently for 5-6 minutes.

  9. Remove the chickens from heat.

  10. Keep the chickens covered in the water for 30 minutes to make them plump and white.

  11. Warm the chickens thoroughly.

  12. Drain the chickens.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine chicken heads and necks, veal or mutton scraps, mace, peppercorns, anchovy, celery, lemon slice, and sweet herbs with 1 quart of water in a saucepan.

  2. Cover the mixture.

  3. Boil until reduced to ½ pint.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Thicken the strained liquid with a mixture of butter and flour, boiling for 5-6 minutes.

  6. Add mushrooms, egg yolks, cream, and nutmeg.

  7. Stir until nearly boiling.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the chickens.

  2. Serve.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Chickens
The main protein, which is gently poached so it stays moist and tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter-based sauce so it coats the chicken smoothly.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the sauce when combined with flour.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the sauce's flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce until nearly boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the sauce boils after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy, so it should be heated slowly and stirred.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, flour, anchovy, celery, lemon, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, flour, anchovy, celery, lemon, butter. 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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