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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering an old chicken with water, onion, leek, lettuce, chervil, and salt.

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

Why it works: Chervil and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 396 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Roast or bake the chicken until it turns yellow.

  2. Place the chicken in a soup kettle with water and set on low heat.

  3. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface.

  4. Add the onion, leek, chervil, lettuce, and salt.

  5. Simmer for about 3 hours.

Finish and strain

  1. Remove the chicken and vegetables.

  2. Skim off the fat.

  3. Strain the broth.

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. Chervil + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and meaty flavour of the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savoury, aromatic sweetness to the broth during the long simmer.
Leek
Contributes mild, delicate onion-like aroma and flavour to the stock.
Lettuce
Adds a gentle vegetable sweetness and body to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum. Scum rising at the start of simmering contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

“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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