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Chickens, a LA Dauphine

A stuffed chicken filled with fowl, mushrooms, and parsley, braised with bacon, herbs, and mirepoix.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chickens, a LA Dauphine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw and bone the chickens, leaving the legs and wings intact.

  2. Fill the void with the quenelle of fowl mixed with mushrooms and parsley.

  3. Truss the chickens to maintain their shape.

  4. Rub the chickens with lemon juice and cover the breasts with bacon.

Braise

  1. Wrap the chickens in buttered paper and place them in a stewpan.

  2. Add carrot, onion, and a faggot of herbs, then moisten with light mirepoix.

  3. Simmer gently on a slow fire for about 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Drain the chickens, remove the string, and serve with the clarified essence they were braised in.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Quenelle of fowl
Forms a light, tender stuffing that sets as it cooks and fills the boned cavity.
Fat bacon
Lays fat over the breasts, keeping the lean meat moist during braising.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory flavour to the stuffing.
Spring chickens
Provide the tender meat that is braised whole after boning and trussing.

The step that matters

Simmer gently on a slow fire. Braising at a gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften and the meat turn tender while staying juicy. A hard boil toughens the proteins, tightens the stuffing and can break the quenelle apart.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, parsley, carrot, onion):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, parsley, carrot, onion. 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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