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Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering a whole chicken with water and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Skin and cut the fowl into pieces.

  2. Place the dark meat in a pot with 1 quart of water.

Simmer and strain

  1. Boil slowly until the meat is tender.

  2. Strain the liquid.

  3. Return the liquid to the pot.

Add vegetables and thicken

  1. Add the vegetables to the pot.

  2. Strain the vegetables out later.

  3. Thicken the broth with 2 tablespoons of arrowroot if no vegetables are used.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Arrowroot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Arrowroot + parsniptop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Fowl
Provides the meat and flavor, and collagen that gives the broth body as it simmers.
Arrowroot
Starch that thickens the broth when heated, giving it a smooth body.
Potato
Starch that softens during simmering, adding body and mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the meat is tender. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and the meat tender. Vigorous boiling breaks up fat and proteins, which clouds the broth and toughens the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (arrowroot, turnip, parsnip, potato):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against arrowroot, turnip, parsnip, potato. 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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