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Roast Chicken

Roast Chicken is a whole chicken seasoned with butter, flour, and a breadcrumb mixture, then roasted with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Mix the bread crumbs, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, parsley, thyme, sage, savory, marjoram, and 2 tablespoons of butter in a bowl.

  3. Clean the chicken and stuff the crop and body with the dressing.

  4. Truss the chicken and dredge it with salt.

Roast

  1. Rub soft butter over the breast and legs, then dredge thickly with flour.

  2. Place a rack in a roasting pan, lay the chicken on it, and add 1/2 cup of hot water.

  3. Roast in the oven, basting every 15 minutes with the pan juices until cooked through.

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. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 dry oven heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the skin brown and stay tender.
Flour
Coats the skin so it browns and crisps during roasting.
Bread crumbs
Form the stuffing, absorbing the butter and herb flavours and adding body.

The step that matters

Basting every 15 minutes with pan juices. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps the skin brown evenly, while the chicken must still be checked until cooked through so the meat is safe and not dry.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper, flour, bread, parsley, thyme. 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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