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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering a whole chicken with mace, onion, peppercorns, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and quarter the chicken, removing the skin and rump.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the chicken, mace, onion, peppercorns, and water.

  2. Simmer until the broth is reduced and flavorful.

  3. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

Finish

  1. Season with salt and add chopped parsley if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the meat, bones and collagen that give the broth body and flavor.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts flavor from the chicken and aromatics.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat. Fat that rises to the surface can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Removing it as it forms keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mace, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mace, onion. 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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