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Chickens a LA Macedoine

A dish of boiled chickens served with a sauce of mixed vegetables and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chickens a LA Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Truss the chickens for boiling.

  2. Tie bards of fat bacon over the breast.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut cucumbers into shilling-sized pieces.

  2. Fry the cucumbers until light brown.

  3. Stew the cucumbers in good consommé.

  4. Cut green beans into squares.

  5. Boil the green beans, keeping them green.

  6. Stew the mushrooms.

  7. Blanch the celery.

  8. Cut the celery like the cucumbers.

  9. Stew the celery in good consommé.

  10. Boil the cauliflower heads.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the chickens gently in mutton broth for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the chickens.

  3. Drain the chickens.

  4. Place the chickens on a dish.

  5. Arrange the vegetables around the chickens as desired.

  6. Pour a good butter sauce with half the juice of a lemon over the chickens and vegetables, ensuring everything is hot.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Green beans + cauliflowertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + green beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Young chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and cooks through during gentle boiling.
Fat bacon
Bards baste the breast with fat, keeping the lean meat moist during cooking.
Cucumbers
Add a mild, watery texture that softens when stewed in consommé.
Celery
Adds crisp-tender texture and a mild aromatic flavour after blanching and stewing.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the green beans, keeping them green. Green beans turn dull olive-brown when overcooked, because heat releases acids that change the chlorophyll colour. Brief boiling in plenty of water, then cooling or draining promptly, keeps the colour bright.

“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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