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Plain Chicken Broth

A simple broth made from chicken, water, salt, cabbage lettuce, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 396 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Plain Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into four parts.

  2. Wash the pieces in cold water.

Make the broth

  1. Place the chicken pieces in a stewpan with spring water and salt.

  2. Bring the contents to a boil.

  3. Skim the surface.

  4. Add the lettuce heart and chervil.

  5. Boil for about 1 hour.

  6. Strain the broth through a napkin into a basin.

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. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + cherviltop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Chicken + cabbagetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together436 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the broth its body and savour.
Lettuce heart
Adds a mild, vegetal sweetness and fresh aroma to the broth.
Chervil
Contributes a delicate, herbal aroma to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that rise as the water heats. Removing them early keeps the broth clearer and less greasy.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lettuce, chervil. 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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