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Larded Chickens

Larded chickens are whole chickens larded with strips of fat salt pork, roasted with boiling water, and served with a gravy of boiled giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Larded Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw, wash, and wipe the chickens thoroughly.

  2. Truss the chickens as for roasting.

  3. Lard the breasts with strips of fat salt pork. Place the larded breasts an inch apart.

Roast

  1. Lay the chickens breast side up in a roasting pan with ½ cup of boiling water.

  2. Roast the chickens, basting often, for about 12 minutes per pound. Keep the chickens warm.

Make the gravy

  1. Mince the boiled giblets. Stir the minced giblets into the gravy with a thickening of browned flour.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chickens
The main protein, which is trussed so it roasts evenly as one shape.
Strips of fat salt pork
Larding adds fat that melts into the breast meat, keeping it moist and flavourful.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Boiled giblets
Minced into the gravy, they add savoury meaty flavour.

The step that matters

Basting during roasting. Frequent basting spreads melted fat and pan juices over the skin, helping it brown and keeping the meat from drying out. These pan juices also form the base of the gravy.

“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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