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To Boil Chickens

A boiled chicken served with a cream sauce made from heads, necks, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Boil Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Soak the chickens in skimmed milk for 2 hours.

  2. Truss the chickens.

  3. Singe the chickens.

  4. Dust the chickens with flour.

  5. Cover the chickens in cold water.

  6. Set the covered chickens over low heat.

  7. Remove any scum from the water.

  8. Boil the chickens gently for 5-6 minutes.

  9. Remove the chickens from heat.

  10. Keep the chickens covered in the water for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine chicken heads and necks, veal or mutton scraps, mace, peppercorns, anchovy, celery, lemon slice, and sweet herbs in a saucepan with 1 quart of water.

  2. Cover the saucepan.

  3. Boil until reduced to ½ pint.

  4. Strain the liquid.

  5. Thicken the strained liquid with ¼ pound of butter mixed with flour.

  6. Boil the thickened liquid for 5-6 minutes.

  7. Add mushrooms, egg yolks, cream, and nutmeg to the sauce.

  8. Stir the sauce constantly until nearly boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve the warm chickens with the sauce poured over them.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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, cooked gently in water so the meat stays tender.
Butter
Thickens the strained liquid with flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they gently heat, giving it a smooth body.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and body, giving the sauce a smooth, rich texture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce constantly until nearly boiling. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated or left still. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, flour, anchovy, celery, lemon, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, flour, anchovy, celery, lemon, parsley. 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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