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To Boil Fowls

A boiled fowl served with white sauce or melted butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Boil Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dust the fowl well with flour.

  2. Place it in a kettle of cold water and cover it tightly.

Cook

  1. Set the kettle on the fire and remove the scum as it rises.

  2. Let it boil for 20 minutes, then cover it tightly to keep in the steam.

  3. Let it sit for 30 minutes to stew in the heat.

Serve

  1. Drain the fowl and serve with white sauce or melted butter and parsley.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Fowl
Provides the main protein that becomes tender through gentle, covered simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the serving sauce or topping.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving a smoother, softer texture to the white sauce.
Flour
Dusted on the fowl, it helps the surface hold together and gives the sauce some body.

The step that matters

Removing the scum as it rises. Foam that forms while the water heats carries impurities to the surface. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and the flavour clean.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, cream):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream. 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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