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Chicken with Rice, Burgher’s-Way

A chicken stuffed with marrow, liver, crop, breadcrumbs, wrapped in bacon, cooked with sausages and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chicken with Rice, Burgher’s-Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Draw and singe the chicken.

  2. Chop the beef marrow, chicken liver, and crop.

  3. Mix the chopped ingredients with bread crumbs, salt, and nutmeg.

  4. Fill the chicken breast with the mixture and truss it with the legs.

  5. Wrap the chicken in bacon and place it in a stewpan.

Cook the chicken

  1. Add the sausages, parsley, cloves, and peppercorns.

  2. Moisten with broth until just covered and bring to a boil.

  3. After five minutes, reduce heat to low and simmer for 40-50 minutes, depending on size.

Cook the rice

  1. In another stewpan, add 12 ounces of washed rice and moisten with the chicken broth, ensuring the liquid covers the rice three times its height.

  2. Cook the rice until tender.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken liver
Adds richness and a soft, savoury texture to the stuffing.
White bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Beef marrow
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist during cooking.
Rice (in the method)
Absorbs the broth as it cooks, becoming tender and flavoured by the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer the chicken gently after boiling. Once the liquid reaches a boil, dropping to a low simmer keeps the meat tender and juicy. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can break the trussed bird apart, so the heat must be reduced promptly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, beef, liver, bread, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, beef, liver, bread, nutmeg, parsley. 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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