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To Roast Chickens

This recipe describes roasting whole chickens stuffed with bread crumbs and seasoning, served with a gravy made from the giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast Chickens

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chickens

  1. Rub the inside of the chickens with an onion.

  2. Stuff the chickens with dry bread crumbs seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, and thyme or marjoram if desired.

  3. Do not wet the bread crumbs; they should crumble when carved.

  4. Place the chickens in a roasting pan with a small amount of water.

  5. Dot the chickens with small bits of drippings.

Roast

  1. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Baste often to prevent drying.

  3. Roast for 45 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Boil the giblets until tender.

  2. Chop the boiled giblets finely for the gravy.

  3. If there is too much fat in the pan, pour it off.

  4. If there is not enough gravy, add boiling water.

  5. Season the gravy with pepper and salt.

  6. Thicken the gravy with flour.

  7. Stir in the chopped giblets.

  8. Let the gravy simmer for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the chickens side by side with heads in the same direction.

  2. Pour some gravy around the chickens.

  3. Serve the remaining gravy in a gravy boat.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chickens
Provide the main protein, which cooks through in the oven while the skin browns.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the bread crumb stuffing and helps the skin brown.
Dry bread crumbs
Form a light, crumbly stuffing that absorbs the chicken's juices without becoming soggy.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings into a smooth gravy.
Giblets
Chopped and simmered, they add savoury flavour and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Do not wet the bread crumbs. Wet crumbs turn dense and pasty and steam inside the bird, so the stuffing fails to crumble when carved and the cavity cooks unevenly.

Swap the thyme

The recipe marks thyme as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, bread, butter, pepper, flour, liver):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, bread, butter, pepper, flour, liver. 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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