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Fried Chicken

Fried chicken made by baking pieces, coating with flour, egg, crumbs, and frying in butter or pork gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried 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

  1. Cut the young chickens into small pieces.

  2. Place them in a pan with a few tablespoons of water, cover, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Coat and fry

  1. Remove the chicken from the oven and roll in flour or dip in beaten egg.

  2. Coat the chicken with bread or cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry the coated chicken in butter or hot pork gravy.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Young chickens
Form the main body of the dish, cooked first by baking to become tender.
Flour
Forms a dry first coating that helps the egg and crumbs adhere to the chicken.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the crumb coating sticks evenly to the chicken.
Bread crumbs or powdered cracker crumbs
Form the crisp outer layer that browns when the chicken is fried.
Butter or hot pork gravy
Provides the frying medium that adds richness and helps brown the crust.

The step that matters

Frying the coated chicken. Once the chicken has been baked, the coating must be fried in hot fat so the crumbs brown and crisp. If the fat is not hot enough, the crust absorbs grease and turns soggy rather than browning.

“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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