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Chickens a-'LA-Braze

Chickens braised over layers of veal and beef, served with sweetbreads, truffles, morels, mushrooms and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,148 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chickens a-'LA-Braze

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Lard the chickens and season with salt, pepper, and mace.

  2. In a deep stewpan, layer veal, bacon, onion, carrot, and beef.

  3. Place the chickens, breasts down, on top of the layers and add a bundle of sweet herbs.

  4. Cover with a quart of broth or water and stew gently for one hour.

Make the garnish and sauce

  1. Meanwhile, stew the veal sweetbreads with a little broth or water, cock's combs, truffles, morels, and ox palate.

  2. Once the chickens are done, remove them and keep hot.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid, skim off the fat, and pour it into the sweetbreads.

  4. Add red wine, ketchup, mushrooms, artichoke bottoms, and asparagus tops, and boil together.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,148 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Form the main dish, cooking gently in the stock to become tender and moist.
Veal
Lies under the chickens, enriching the stock with gelatin and savory meaty flavor.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavors the braising liquid as it renders.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth, helping build a richer, more complex sauce.
Veal sweetbreads
Provide a tender, delicate texture as a rich addition to the dish.
Truffles
Contribute a intense earthy aroma that perfumes the sauce.

The step that matters

Stewing the chickens gently. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and breaks up the layers, so a gentle simmer keeps the chicken tender and the broth clear.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, veal, onion, carrot, beef, truffle):

  1. Celerybetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, veal, onion, carrot, beef, truffle. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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