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Fried Chicken

A dish of chicken pieces fried in butter and lard, served with a cream gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and cut up the chicken, then wipe it dry.

  2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

  3. Dredge each piece in flour, or dip it in beaten egg and then in cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat butter and lard in a frying pan until boiling hot.

  2. Add the chicken and fry until brown on both sides.

  3. Remove the chicken, drain it, and set it aside in a covered dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Stir flour into the remaining gravy, making it smooth.

  2. Add cream or milk, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the gravy over the chicken and serve hot.

Simmer and fry again

  1. Simmer the chicken in a little water until tender.

  2. Season the simmered chicken with salt and pepper.

  3. Dip the chicken in flour or cracker crumbs and egg.

  4. Fry the chicken as above.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Eggs
Bind the cracker crumbs and flour coating to the chicken pieces.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns in the fat and thickens the gravy.
Cracker crumbs
Add a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Butter and lard
Act as the frying fat, conducting heat and promoting browning of the coating.
Cream or milk
Adds body and richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the fat until boiling hot before adding the chicken. Very hot fat sets the coating quickly on contact. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs more oil, turns greasy, and browns unevenly.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, egg, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, egg, butter, 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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