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Stuffed Chicken

Roasted whole chicken stuffed with pork, breadcrumbs, liver, heart, parsley, eggs, and spices, served with a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the chicken

  1. Clean and stuff the chicken with the prepared stuffing.

  2. Tie the chicken with cord and place it in a buttered pan lined with pork slices or dot with butter.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Roast and finish

  1. Roast the chicken, basting often with melted butter and water, for about 1.5 hours or until done.

  2. Prepare the sauce by adding a little cream to the chicken's cooking liquid.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Pork + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Chicken stock
Adds moisture to the stuffing and the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for browning and richness, and is used for basting.
Pork slices
Lines the pan and adds fat that flavors and moistens the chicken as it roasts.

The step that matters

Roast the chicken until done. A stuffed cavity insulates the stuffing and slows heat reaching the center, so the bird must be cooked through. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist while the interior heats.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, bread, parsley, egg, pepper, liver):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, bread, parsley, egg, pepper, 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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