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Breaded Chicken

Breaded chicken pieces baked with butter, cream, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Breaded Chicken

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Breaded Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chickens into pieces as for fricassee.

  2. Dip each piece in the beaten egg, then coat with bread-crumbs or rolled crackers.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and minced parsley.

Bake

  1. Place in a baking pan and top each piece with a lump of butter.

  2. Add ½ cup of hot water and bake at 300°F (150°C), basting often.

  3. Once cooked, transfer to a warm platter.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In the pan, pour in 1 cup of cream or rich milk and 1 cup of bread-crumbs.

  2. Stir well until cooked, then pour over the chicken.

  3. Serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young chickens
Provides the meat that is cooked through in the oven and served.
Beaten egg
Acts as the binder that makes the crumb coating stick to each piece.
Bread-crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the chicken.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce made in the pan.

The step that matters

Basting the chicken while it bakes. Regular basting moistens the coating and meat as water and fat evaporate, helping the chicken stay juicy and the crumbs from drying out or scorching.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, bread, pepper, cream. 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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