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Roasted Chicken

Roasted chicken with bacon, salt, butter, flour, and giblet gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Roasted Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Draw the chicken.

  2. Singe the chicken.

  3. Clean the chicken.

  4. Truss the chicken.

Make the giblet water

  1. Clean the giblets.

  2. Place the giblets in a kettle and cover them with cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil and simmer the giblets while the chicken roasts.

Roast

  1. Place two slices of bacon in the roasting pan and place the chicken on top of the bacon.

  2. Dissolve 1 lb of salt in water and cover the bottom of the roasting pan with the salt water.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  4. Roast the chicken for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  5. Remove the chicken and bacon from the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pot, mix 1 lb of butter and 1 pint of flour smoothly.

  2. Add 2 gallons of the giblet cooking water.

  3. Stir constantly over heat until it boils.

  4. Chop the giblets finely.

  5. Mix the chopped giblets into the gravy along with ¼ lb of salt, 1¼ oz of ground white pepper, and enough caramel to achieve a brown color.

Can (if canning)

  1. If canning, place the chicken in a can and fill one-third of the can with sauce.

  2. Solder on the lid.

  3. Process at 250°F for 55 minutes for half chicken size, 65 minutes for whole chicken size.

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 + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Chicken + white peppertop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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
Combines with flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Flour
Forms a roux with butter that thickens the gravy as it heats and boils.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky flavor to the roasting pan while the chicken cooks.
Giblets
Simmered to make flavorful cooking water and then chopped into the gravy.
Caramel
Adds brown color to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stir the roux constantly until it boils. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated in liquid, and stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pot while the gravy thickens.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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