Why it works: Chicken and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,314 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Boiled Fowls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Select white-legged poultry for better color.
Truss the fowl firmly, drawing the legs into the body and twisting the wings over the back.
Cover the fowl with hot water (not boiling).
Boil
Boil a full-sized fowl for about 45 minutes.
Boil young chickens for 20-25 minutes.
Remove scum carefully as it gathers on the surface.
Serve
Serve with your choice of sauce and garnish with boiled cauliflower or young vegetable marrow.
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.
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Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,314 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fowl or young chickens
- Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in simmering liquid.
The step that matters
Keep the water below a boil. Gentle simmering keeps the meat tender and juicy, while a hard boil toughens muscle fibers and makes the surface cloudy with scum.
“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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