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Chickens a LA Macedoine

A boiled chicken served with sautéed cucumbers, French beans, mushrooms, celery, cauliflower, and a lemon butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chickens a LA Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Truss the chickens for boiling.

  2. Tie bards of fat bacon over the breast.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cucumbers into shilling-sized pieces.

  2. Fry the cucumber pieces until light brown.

  3. Stew the cucumbers in good consommé.

  4. Cut the French beans into squares. Boil the French beans, keeping them green.

  5. Stew the mushrooms in consommé.

  6. Cut the celery like the cucumbers. Blanch the celery.

  7. Stew the celery in consommé.

  8. Boil the cauliflower heads.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the chickens gently in mutton broth for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the chickens. Drain the chickens.

  3. Place the chickens on a large dish.

  4. Arrange the vegetables around the chickens.

  5. Pour a good butter sauce with the juice of half a lemon over the dish, ensuring everything is hot.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  5. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle simmering in broth.
Fat bacon
Bards of fat over the breast baste the meat and keep it moist as it cooks.
Cucumbers
Give a fresh, mild crunch and a contrast to the rich chicken and sauce.
Celery
Adds a crisp, aromatic texture to the vegetable garnish after stewing in consommé.
Butter
Forms the rich sauce that adds fat, smoothness and flavour to the finished dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce and balances the dish.

The step that matters

Boil the chickens gently in mutton broth. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and breaks the skin, while a gentle simmer keeps the chicken tender and intact.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cucumber, beans, mushroom, cauliflower, mutton, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cucumber, beans, mushroom, cauliflower, mutton, butter. 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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