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Chicken Aspee

A gelatinized chicken stock served with sliced hard‑boiled eggs and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,027 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the chicken in a pot with 3 pints of water.

  2. Season with peppercorns, allspice, and onions to taste.

  3. Simmer until the chicken is very tender.

  4. Remove the chicken and let the stock boil down to 1½ pints.

  5. Season the stock with Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, and soaked gelatin.

  6. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat.

Set and serve

  1. Wet and wipe a mold, then place slices of hard‑boiled egg and pieces of parsley inside.

  2. Cut up the chicken and pour the stock through a fine sieve over it.

  3. Refrigerate to congeal.

  4. Turn out onto a platter and serve with a garnish.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,808 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together20,622 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

Gelatine
Sets the stock into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Chicken
Gives the stock its meaty flavor and body while it simmers.
Hard-boiled eggs
Adds visual contrast as a decorative layer in the set jelly.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and then remove from heat. Gelatine must be fully dissolved into the hot stock before it is poured, or it will not set evenly. Overheating for long can weaken its setting power, so boil briefly and stop.

Flavor stand-ins for the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, sauce, tomato, ketchup, egg, parsley):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, sauce, tomato, ketchup, egg, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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