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 ↓
Fried Chickens
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Dredge the cut-up chickens well with flour and sprinkle with salt.
Heat a good quantity of boiling lard in a pan.
Fry the chickens until they are light brown.
Make the sauce and garnish
Fry the small pieces of mush and the picked parsley until nicely browned.
In a separate pot, combine the milk, butter, pepper, and salt, and stew the mixture for a little while.
Pour the milk mixture over the fried chickens.
Garnish the chickens with the fried parsley.
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.
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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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
- Whole chickens
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by frying.
- Flour
- Coats the chicken so it browns and forms a crisp outer crust when fried.
- Rich milk
- Forms the creamy liquid poured over the chicken, adding richness and moisture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the milk mixture for a smooth, flavorful sauce.
- Boiling lard
- Conducts heat for frying, browning the chicken and sealing in its juices.
The step that matters
Fry the chickens until light brown. Frying at high heat sets the flour coating into a crisp crust; if the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy, and crowding the pan lowers the temperature further.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, milk, butter, pepper):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, milk, butter, pepper. 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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