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Broiled Chicken on Toast

A broiled chicken served atop buttered toast with a cream or milk gravy thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Broiled Chicken on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Broil the chicken until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the chicken and place it in a square tin or dripping pan.

  3. Butter the chicken well and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Place the chicken in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Moisten and butter the bread slices, then lay them on a platter.

  2. Place the chicken on top of the toast.

  3. Add cream or milk to the gravy in the pan.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour and pour it over the 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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).

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

Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the chicken and bread, and helps the surface brown.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and body to the gravy, making it smooth and rich.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the chicken rather than running off.
Bread
Forms the base that soaks up the juices and gravy under the chicken.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour. Flour must be cooked into the hot pan juices or it stays lumpy and tastes raw. Whisking it in gradually and simmering briefly lets the starch swell evenly, giving a smooth gravy that clings to the chicken.

“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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