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Fowl Stewed with Rice

A stew of a young hen cooked with rice, mace, onions, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fowl Stewed with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Truss the pullet as for boiling.

Stew the chicken

  1. Stew the pullet in veal broth until tender and the liquid is nearly reduced.

  2. Add mace and onion slices while stewing.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash and pick the rice, then boil it until half done.

  2. Strain the rice and add fresh butter.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  4. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Mace + ricetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together932 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pullet
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Veal broth
Cooks the pullet and, as it reduces, concentrates flavour into the sauce.
Rice
Adds body and starch to the dish as the main side component.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the rice.

The step that matters

Stewing the pullet until tender with the liquid nearly reduced. Slow, gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue so the meat becomes tender. Stopping before the liquid fully evaporates keeps the broth concentrated but still able to coat the meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, rice, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, rice, 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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