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Chicken Broth

A simple broth made by simmering chicken, water, salt, and rice or pearl barley, finished with celery tops or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the chicken, cold water, salt, and rice or pearl barley.

  2. Simmer slowly until the liquid is reduced by half.

  3. Ten minutes before serving, add the chopped celery tops or parsley.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Releases flavor and collagen into the water, giving the broth savory taste and body.
Rice or pearl barley
Its starch thickens the liquid slightly and adds a little body.
Celery tops or parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and flavor when added near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly. A gentle simmer extracts flavor without churning fat into the liquid. Boiling vigorously emulsifies fat and fine particles, leaving the broth cloudy and greasy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Corianderfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice. 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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