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Clear White Chicken Broth, with Tapioca

A clear chicken and veal broth flavored with herbs, served with tapioca pearls and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and leek work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 57 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Disjoint the fowl and place it in a stew pan.

  2. Cover the stew pan with water.

  3. Add the veal bone, salt, whole white pepper, bay leaf, celery, onion, leek, garlic, parsley root, mace, and carrot to the stew pan.

  4. Boil slowly for 5 hours.

  5. Strain the broth through a cloth and cool.

  6. Refrigerate the broth overnight and remove the grease.

Clarify the broth

  1. Chop the veal.

  2. Mix the chopped veal with the whites and shells of the eggs.

  3. Add the stock and whip thoroughly.

  4. Heat the mixture over moderate heat and boil slowly until clarified.

  5. Strain the clarified broth.

Add tapioca and serve

  1. Boil the tapioca in plenty of boiling water until transparent.

  2. Wash the tapioca in cold water.

  3. Add the tapioca to the broth.

  4. Serve the broth with small round pieces of toast on a separate plate.

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. White pepper + leektop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

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

  4. Onion + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. White pepper + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites and shells
Coagulate and trap cloudy particles, so the broth clarifies into a clear liquid.
Chopped lean veal
Adds meaty flavor and, with the eggs, helps collect impurities during clarifying.
Fowl
Builds the rich, savory body of the stock as it simmers.
Pearl tapioca
Thickens the clear broth gently and gives it a translucent, slightly chewy texture.
Veal bone
Adds gelatin and depth to the stock, giving it body and richness.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until clarified. Boiling the egg-and-veal raft too hard breaks it apart and leaves the broth cloudy. Gentle heat lets the proteins set and trap particles so the strained broth stays clear.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, white pepper, celery, onion, leek, garlic, parsley):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, white pepper, celery, onion, leek, garlic, 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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