Skip to main content
Soup

Chicken Tea

A clear soup made from chicken, gizzard, liver, and salt, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and liver work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 383 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Pluck the chicken, skin it, and remove the insides and all fat.

  2. Cut off the head and feet, wash the chicken, and cut it into small pieces, including bones and muscles.

Make the tea

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a stewpan with salt and cold water.

  2. Add the cleaned gizzard and sliced liver.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

  4. Let it stand near the fire for 30 minutes.

  5. Strain the tea through a sieve and serve with dry toast.

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. Chicken + livertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together383 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat, bones and gelatine that give the tea its body and flavour.
Liver
Adds a richer, deeper flavour to the broth.
Gizzard
Adds savoury depth and a firmer, meaty note to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours, skimming occasionally. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, while a rolling boil emulsifies fat and clouds it. Skimming removes the foam and surface fat that would otherwise make the tea greasy and cloudy.

“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

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes