Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Broth

A clear broth made from a whole fowl, water, mace, rice, and optional parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Broth

Why it works: Rice and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,762 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the fowl and cut it down the back, removing the rump and brown parts.

  2. Wash the fowl and place it in a pot with 3 pints of water, mace, and rice.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, then cover and simmer for 3 hours.

  2. Add parsley if desired before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  2. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + ricetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together932 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole fowl
Provides the meat and bones that flavour and enrich the broth as it simmers.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts flavour and gelatin from the fowl.
Rice
Adds a small amount of starch that gives the broth a slightly fuller body.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after boiling. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and can taste bitter if left in. Skimming early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, rice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, rice. 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.

More chicken broth recipes

for the Sick 3with Rice 3 See all 336 →

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes