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Chickens

A boiled chicken served with a sauce of butter, flour, red wine, catsup, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Half boil the chickens in enough water to cover them.

  2. Remove the chickens, cut them up, and take out the breast bones.

  3. Stew the chicken pieces in their liquor with mace and salt over low heat, covered.

  4. Once the chickens are done, place them in a dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt butter and mix with flour, red wine, catsup, pepper, and salt to make a sauce.

  2. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Red wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Butter and flour 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
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers gently in the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Catsup
Adds sweetness, acidity and savoury tang to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew the chicken pieces gently, covered, over low heat. Gentle, covered simmering keeps the meat moist and tender; a hard boil toughens the proteins and dries the flesh, so low heat matters here.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, red wine, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, red wine, 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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