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Roast Chicken

Roast chicken seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, served with a giblet gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

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

  1. Wash the chicken well in two or three waters, adding baking soda to the last wash if needed.

  2. Dry the chicken with a clean cloth.

  3. Fill the cavity with stuffing.

  4. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Roast

  1. Place the chicken in a roasting pan with hot water and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Baste the chicken frequently while roasting at 400°F (200°C).

  3. When nearly done, add the remaining butter to the pan.

  4. Baste the chicken again.

  5. Dredge a little flour over the chicken.

  6. Baste the chicken once more.

  7. Finish roasting for about 30 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Simmer the giblets in a small amount of water.

  2. Strain the giblets.

  3. Mix the strained giblets with the drippings from the chicken.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Add chopped giblets to the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve the chicken with the gravy and tart sauce on the side.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Chicken + livertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together383 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Whole chicken
Provides the meat that is roasted and carved, with the cavity filled for stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the pan drippings and helps the skin brown.
Flour
Dredged over the chicken and browned to thicken the gravy.
Baking soda
Added to the last wash to help the chicken's skin and surface feel different during cooking.

The step that matters

Basting the chicken frequently. Basting spreads fat and pan liquid over the skin, which helps it brown and stay moist as the surface dries in the oven.

“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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