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Strong Chicken Broth

A robust broth made by simmering chicken strips, bones, sweetbread, and cream until flavorful.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Strong Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Remove the lungs, liver, and skin from the chicken and cut the meat into large strips.

  2. Using a sharp knife, cut the strips across the fibers into thin shavings, removing excess fat.

  3. Place the shavings in a jar, add salt, and cover with cold water; mix to prevent solid mass formation.

  4. Cover the jar with paper and prepare a saucepan with cold water reaching 1 inch from the top of the jar.

  5. Simmer gently on low heat for 1½ hours, lightly covering the saucepan.

Make the broth

  1. Break the chicken bones and place them in a pint of water with a pinch of salt; simmer gently until the broth is ready.

  2. Remove the meat from the jar and pound it thoroughly, gradually adding some juice from the bones and a little water.

  3. Press the meat through a fine sieve into a bowl using the back of a wooden spoon.

  4. Take 1 teacup of the broth from the bones, remove the fat, and combine it with the thick meat broth in a saucepan.

  5. Add cream or milk, salt, and pepper, then bring to a boil.

Add the sweetbread and finish

  1. Wash the sweetbread, soak it in salt water for 2 hours, then boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Transfer to cold water to blanch, trim off fat and skin, and cut into pieces.

  3. Add the sweetbread to the stock and bring to a boil; skim carefully and simmer slowly for 1½ hours.

  4. When tender, add cream, egg yolk, lemon juice, pepper, and salt; strain carefully.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and flavour that form the body of the broth.
Egg yolk
Thickens and enriches the finished broth as it is added off the heat.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel to the broth.
Sweetbread
Contributes tender texture and richness to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat; if the broth boils after it is added, the yolk can curdle and turn grainy.

“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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