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Chicken Broth for the Consumptive

A broth made from a young fowl, rice, pearl barley, and herbs, simmered, boiled, and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Broth for the Consumptive

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the cut-up fowl in a small, well-tinned stew pan with rice and water.

  2. Add pearl barley when putting in the fowl.

Simmer and infuse

  1. Add coriander seed and poppy grains, then simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Add crayfish and boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Stir in borage leaves, cover, and remove from heat to infuse for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the broth, then dissolve barley sugar in it.

  2. Serve lukewarm and ensure it is well skimmed.

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. Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Rice + coriandertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,854 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Coriander + boragetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Borage + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Coriander + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone (spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Young fowl
Gives the broth its main meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly and adds body as it cooks down.
Crayfish
Adds a shellfish-like aroma and savoury depth to the broth.
Barley sugar
Adds gentle sweetness that balances the savoury broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Fat and foam rise to the surface during simmering and can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Removing them while the broth is hot keeps it clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, crayfish, borage, barley, sugar):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, crayfish, borage, barley, sugar. 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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