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Stock-pot Fowl, with Fine Herbs

A chicken stew cooked in butter with onions, shallots, mushrooms, parsley, wine, gravy, ham or tongue, finished with pepper, lemon, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stock-pot Fowl, with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the boiled fowl and cut it into six pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and fry the chopped onions and shallots.

  2. Add the softened mushrooms and parsley; cook until mushrooms release moisture.

  3. Sprinkle with flour, then moisten with white wine and gravy; stir until boiling.

  4. Remove from heat, skim off fat, and pour sauce over the fowl pieces.

Finish and serve

  1. Add diced ham or tongue, and let simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Finish with pepper, lemon juice, and chopped parsley; serve.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the main body of the stew, cooked tender from boiling before being cut into pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the onion and shallot flavour as they fry.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce as it reduces.
Dry mushrooms
Contribute earthy savour and chew, and release moisture into the sauce as they cook.
Ham or pickled tongue
Adds salty, meaty depth to the sauce during the final simmer.

The step that matters

Sprinkle with flour, then moisten with white wine and gravy; stir until boiling.. Flour must be stirred into the fat and then liquid gradually and brought to a boil so it thickens smoothly without lumps. Adding liquid too fast or stopping the stirring can leave the sauce clumped.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, mushroom, parsley, flour, white wine, ham):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, mushroom, parsley, flour, white wine, ham. 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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