Why it works: Chicken and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,092 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Chicken Purée
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Clean and dry the chicken.
Remove the flesh and cut it into small dice.
Cook the purée
Place the diced chicken in a pot and cover with cold water.
Add salt and lemon juice if desired.
Cook gently for 1.5 hours.
Strain the mixture through a sieve.
Add the bone stock and finish
Cook the bones separately in water for 4 to 5 hours.
Strain the liquid and add it to the purée.
Adjust the consistency with additional liquid or thickeners as needed.
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.
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Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,092 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the main protein and flavour, and the flesh thickens into a smooth purée when cooked and strained.
- Cold water
- Covers the chicken so it cooks gently in liquid, keeping the flesh moist and extracting flavour.
The step that matters
Cook gently for 1.5 hours. Gentle heat keeps the water below a hard boil, so the chicken becomes tender without toughening or turning grainy. Vigorous boiling tightens the proteins and can make the purée coarse.
“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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