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Roast Chicken

A whole chicken roasted with butter, salt, and flour, basted with melted butter and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast 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. Dress the chicken: clean it, stuff it, and truss it.

  2. Rub the entire surface with salt.

  3. Spread the breast and legs with soft butter.

  4. Place the chicken on its back on a rack in a dripping pan.

  5. Dredge the chicken and the bottom of the pan generously with flour.

Roast

  1. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the flour is well browned.

  2. Reduce the heat.

  3. Baste the chicken.

  4. Turn the chicken breast side down.

  5. Baste the chicken every ten minutes using melted butter mixed with boiling water.

  6. Add more water if necessary to prevent burning.

  7. Roast for 1.5 to 1.75 hours for a four-pound chicken.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as it roasts.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the skin and helps it brown.
Flour
Dredged over the surface, it browns and forms a crisp, golden crust.
Boiling water
Mixed with melted butter for basting, adding moisture to keep the chicken from drying out.

The step that matters

Basting with butter and water. Basting every ten minutes keeps the surface moist and the flour coating from scorching, while the added water prevents the drippings from burning in the pan.

“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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