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Stewed Chicken

A dish of boiled chicken pieces simmered in stock, thickened with flour, finished with egg yolks and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Cover chicken pieces with boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Reduce heat and cook below boiling point until tender.

  3. Add salt after the first half-hour of cooking.

  4. Drain stock from chicken and measure.

  5. Make up to required amount with milk or water.

Make the sauce

  1. Blend flour with cold water and add to stock slowly.

  2. Stir and cook until thickened.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add beaten egg yolks and cook for 1 minute.

  5. Stir in parsley.

Serve

  1. Arrange chicken on a platter.

  2. Pour sauce over it.

  3. Garnish with parsley.

  4. Serve with hot tea biscuits, toast points, molded steamed rice, or dumplings.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat that is cooked tender in simmering liquid.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce slightly when cooked gently.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the flavor of the chicken.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce boils after they go in, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and cook only briefly, as the recipe directs.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, pepper, egg. 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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