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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering half a chicken with water, leek, celery, salt, parsley, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place half a chicken in a stewpan with water, leek, celery, salt, and parsley.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim thoroughly, and let it simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the broth through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Return the broth to the stewpan and heat over the fire.

  2. Moisten the flour with a little cold broth or water until smooth.

  3. Pour the flour mixture into the boiling broth while stirring quickly.

  4. Let it simmer for 15 minutes before serving.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Leek + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + leektop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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 body and savory depth.
Flour
Starch that thickens the broth slightly when heated in liquid, giving it a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Pouring the flour mixture into the broth. Flour clumps if added dry or unevenly. Moistening it first and stirring quickly into boiling broth disperses the starch so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, leek, celery, flour. 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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