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Stewed Chicken

A simple stew of chicken pieces simmered with water, butter, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces at the joints and place in a stewpan.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, parsley, and thyme.

Stew

  1. Add 4 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Stew for 1.5 hours, then remove the chicken from the pan.

Make the gravy

  1. If there is no gravy, add another tablespoon of butter, some water, and flour.

  2. Boil for a few minutes until slightly thickened.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 that becomes tender during slow stewing, and the bones and skin flavour the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives the gravy a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch that thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it boils.

The step that matters

Boiling the gravy after adding flour. Flour only thickens when the liquid reaches a boil and the starch granules swell. Stirring it in smoothly first and boiling briefly keeps the gravy lump-free and evenly thickened.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, parsley, butter, flour. 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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