Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering a whole chicken with onion, parsley, peppercorns, and salt in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Broth

Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Joint the chicken.

  2. Place the chicken, onion, parsley, peppercorns, and salt in a stewpan.

  3. Add enough cold water to cover the ingredients.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the broth and remove the fat using a piece of thick blotting paper.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Chicken
Releases meat flavour and collagen, which give the broth body and savoury depth.
Onion
Adds gentle sweetness and savoury aroma as it cooks in the liquid.
Peppercorns
Add a mild, warm aroma and gentle spice to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours. Boiling vigorously churns fat and proteins into the liquid, making the broth cloudy and greasy. A gentle simmer keeps it clear and lets the fat rise for removal.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion. 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.

More chicken broth recipes

for the Sick 3with Rice 3 See all 336 →

You might also like

Chicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipesChicken PattiesChicken Patties46 recipes