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Roast Chicken

Roast Chicken is a whole chicken seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, roasted over salt pork and garnished with parsley.

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

Roast Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the chicken thoroughly and decide whether to stuff it.

  2. Sprinkle the chicken with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Place the chicken on slices of salt pork in a deep baking dish.

  4. Add a little water to the dish.

Roast and finish

  1. Roast in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 14 to 15 minutes per pound.

  2. Baste the chicken frequently.

  3. About 15 minutes before it's done, remove from the oven.

  4. Rub the tops and sides of the chicken with butter and dredge with flour.

  5. Return to the oven for a few more minutes.

  6. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + flourtop 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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 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 fat and richness, and helps the skin brown as it cooks.
Flour
Dusted over the butter, it helps form a crisp, golden coating on the skin.
Salt pork
Lies under the chicken, releasing fat and flavour into the dish as it roasts.

The step that matters

Returning the chicken to the oven after the butter and flour. Butter and flour brown quickly at high heat, so a few minutes too long can scorch the coating before the meat is cooked through. Watch the color closely.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, pork, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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