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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering chicken, mace, onion, and white peppercorns in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the chicken in a pot with enough water to cover it.

  2. Add the mace, sliced onion, and white peppercorns.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer until the broth is flavorful.

  2. Strain the broth and remove any fat.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Chicken + macetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth its savory body.
Onion
Softens and releases sweet, savory aromas into the simmering liquid.
Mace
Adds a warm, spiced aroma to the broth.
White peppercorns
Add mild, sharp aroma and background heat to the broth.

The step that matters

Strain the broth and remove any fat. Fat floats on the surface of the liquid and can make broth greasy and cloudy. Straining also removes the solids, leaving a clear, clean-tasting broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion. 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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