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Braised Chicken

Braised chicken cooked with root vegetables, salt pork, herbs, and a savory sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pot

  1. Combine diced carrot, turnip, onion, celery, and salt pork in a pot.

  2. Place the trussed chicken on top of the vegetables and add more salt pork on the breast.

  3. Add parsley, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, salt, and hot water.

Braise

  1. Cover the pot tightly and simmer for 3 hours, adding more water if steam escapes.

Brown and finish

  1. Rub butter over the chicken breast.

  2. Dredge the chicken breast with flour.

  3. Brown the chicken in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes.

  4. Strain the braising liquid.

  5. Season the liquid to taste.

  6. Thicken the liquid with browned butter and flour if needed.

  7. Serve the sauce with the chicken.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, moist simmering.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that enriches the braising liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce and helps the breast brown.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and encourages browning on the chicken skin.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the braising liquid.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens in the liquid.

The step that matters

Cover the pot tightly and simmer. Gentle, sealed simmering keeps the moisture in and slowly breaks down the connective tissue, so the chicken stays tender rather than dry. Letting steam escape concentrates the liquid too much and can leave the meat tough.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, pork, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, pork, parsley. 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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