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Broiled Chickens

Broiled Chickens is a dish of whole chickens roasted over coals, served with a butter gravy made from liver and gizzard.

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 ↓

Broiled Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Clean the chickens and cut them down the back.

  2. Break the breastbone with a rolling pin, then wash and dry them.

Grill and season

  1. Place the chickens on a grill over bright coals and cover with a sheet of tin.

  2. Turn the chickens several times until they are a fine brown on both sides.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then baste well with butter.

Make the gravy

  1. To make gravy, boil the liver and gizzard in ½ pint of water with a little salt until tender.

  2. Cut the liver and gizzard into small pieces, dust with flour to thicken, and add a piece of butter.

  3. Season the gravy with pepper and salt, and serve it in a sauce-tureen or with the chickens.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Chickens
Form the main body of the dish, cooked by direct heat until browned and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and carrying flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the liver and gizzard juices.
Liver and gizzard (in the method)
Cooked in water to make the broth and pieces that give the gravy body and flavour.

The step that matters

Turning the chickens over the coals. Turning often over bright coals without flaming lets heat cook the birds evenly and browns them gradually. Too much heat or too little turning can scorch the skin while the inside stays underdone.

“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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