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Roast Chicken

A whole chicken roasted with a seasoned breadcrumb stuffing and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix bread crumbs, salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, sage, savory, marjoram, and butter in a bowl.

  3. Clean the chicken and stuff the crop and body with the dressing.

  4. Truss the chicken and season it with salt.

Roast

  1. Rub soft butter over the breast and legs, then dredge thickly with flour.

  2. Place the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan and roast until fully cooked.

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. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven to become tender.
Bread crumbs
Form the body of the stuffing dressing, soaking up butter and herb flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and the dressing taste savory.
Flour
Dredged over the skin to help it brown and crisp in the oven.

The step that matters

Roast until fully cooked. Poultry must reach a safe internal temperature throughout, and the thick thigh and breast can stay underdone while the skin browns. The record gives no time or internal temperature, so check the thickest part with a thermometer rather than relying on color.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, pepper, flour, bread, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper, flour, bread, parsley, thyme. 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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