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Fried Chicken a LA Italienne

Fried chicken pieces coated in a tomato‑parsley batter and cooked in butter, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 a LA Italienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a common batter.

  2. Mix in the chopped tomatoes, onion, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  3. Dry the chicken pieces well.

  4. Dip each chicken piece in the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the chicken in plenty of butter in a thick-bottomed frying pan until brown.

  2. Serve with tomato 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by frying until browned.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and promotes browning of the coating and chicken surface.
Chopped tomatoes
Adds moisture and acidity to the batter, giving a fresh, tangy flavor.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and body to the batter as it cooks.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the batter.

The step that matters

Dry the chicken pieces well. Surface moisture dilutes the batter and creates steam, so a dry surface helps the batter adhere and brown rather than slide off or turn soggy in the hot butter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, pepper, chicken, butter. 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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