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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering chicken heads, feet, and optional aromatics in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald and clean the heads and feet of the fowls in warm water with a little salt.

Make the broth

  1. Boil the heads and feet in 1 quart of water, adding onion and mace if desired.

  2. For richer broth, add lean beef, knuckle bone of veal, or shanks of mutton.

  3. Simmer until the bones are white and dry, then strain the broth.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water, giving the broth body as they simmer.
Fowl heads and feet
Add gelatin-rich collagen, which helps the finished broth set and feel richer.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts flavor and collagen from the bones.

The step that matters

Simmer until the bones are white and dry, then strain the broth. Simmering gently extracts collagen and flavor without clouding the broth. A hard boil emulsifies fat and fine particles into it, making the broth cloudy and greasy. Straining afterward removes the solids.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, beef, veal, mutton):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, beef, veal, mutton. 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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