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Two Breasts of Fowl, Larded, Legs Forced, and Asparagus Peas

A stew of chicken breasts and legs larded with bacon, stuffed, simmered with stock, onions, herbs, mace, bay leaves, and peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Two Breasts of Fowl, Larded, Legs Forced, and Asparagus Peas

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Bone the chicken legs and stuff them with forced meat.

  2. Lard the chicken legs and breasts with bacon.

Simmer

  1. Place the bones and giblets in a stewpan with bacon sheets, stock, onions, herbs, bay leaves, and mace.

  2. Lay the larded fowl on top of the bacon and cover with more bacon and peas.

  3. Simmer on low heat for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sauce on the dish and lardings on top.

  2. Garnish with croutons or pastry.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle simmering.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and salt that render into the stock and flavour the meat.
Forced meat
Adds richness and moisture inside the boned chicken legs as they cook.
Stock
Forms the cooking liquid that gently braises the chicken and carries flavour.
Onions
Build aroma and a mild sweetness as they soften in the stock.
Peas
Add fresh sweetness and bright colour to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently on low heat. At a rolling boil, muscle proteins in the chicken tighten and toughen, and the stock turns cloudy. A low, slow simmer lets the connective tissue soften gradually, keeping the meat tender and the broth clear.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, onion, thyme, parsley, asparagus):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, onion, thyme, parsley, asparagus. 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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