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Roast Chicken

Roast chicken with butter, salt, pepper, and a gravy made from its giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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.

  2. Add a little baking soda to the last rinse if freshness is in doubt.

  3. Dry the chicken with a clean cloth.

  4. Fill the cavity with stuffing.

Roast

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

  2. Add salt and pepper to the pan.

  3. Baste frequently.

  4. Roast at 400°F (200°C) without scorching.

  5. Add a large egg-sized piece of butter to the pan.

  6. Baste again.

  7. Dredge a little flour over the chicken.

  8. Baste once more.

  9. Finish roasting for about 30 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

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

  2. Strain the giblets.

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

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Add chopped giblets to the gravy.

  6. Serve the chicken with the gravy and cranberry sauce or any tart sauce.

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

Chicken
Provides the main protein; roasting cooks it through while its drippings flavour the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and carrying flavour through the roast.
Flour
Dredged over the chicken and browned, it thickens the drippings into gravy.
Giblets
Simmered and chopped into the gravy, they add savoury, meaty depth.

The step that matters

Finish roasting without scorching. Basting keeps the surface moist while the bird cooks; too high or too long a heat can burn the flour and butter on the skin before the inside reaches a safe temperature.

“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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