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To Braise Chickens

A braised chicken dish cooked with forcemeat, herbs, mace, stock, sherry, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and sherry work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 891 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

To Braise Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Fill the boned chickens with forcemeat.

  2. Place the chickens and poultry trimmings in a stew pan.

  3. Add herbs, mace, stock, and sherry.

  4. Cover with bacon slices and white paper, sealing tightly.

Braise

  1. Cook in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the chickens and strain the liquid, skimming off the fat.

  2. Boil the strained liquid quickly and brush it over the chickens.

  3. Before serving, place the chickens in the oven for a few minutes to brown.

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 + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together891 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Mace + sherrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  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

Chickens
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow, moist cooking.
Forcemeat
Stuffing that stays moist and seasons the chicken from within as it cooks.
Chicken stock
Forms the braising liquid that keeps the chicken moist and becomes the glaze.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braising liquid.
Bacon
Lays fat over the chicken, basting it and adding savory flavor as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the strained liquid quickly and brush it over the chickens. Rapid boiling reduces and concentrates the liquid into a glaze that clings to the skin; a gentle simmer would leave it thin and watery.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sherry. 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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