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Smothered Chickens

Smothered Chickens are chicken pieces stewed, coated with flour and butter, then finished with a thickened milk gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Smothered Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Stew and season

  1. Cut the chickens in the back, lay them flat in a dripping pan with one cup of water.

  2. Let them stew in the oven until they begin to get tender.

  3. Take them out and season with salt and pepper.

Brown the chicken

  1. Rub together one and one-half tablespoonfuls of flour and one tablespoonful butter; spread the mixture all over the chicken.

  2. Put the chicken back in the oven, baste well.

  3. When the chicken is tender and nicely browned, take it out of the dripping pan.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Mix the gravy in the pan with one cup of thickened milk and a little flour.

  2. Put the mixture on the stove and let it scald up well.

  3. Pour the gravy over the chickens.

  4. Add finely chopped parsley as a garnish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

712Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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. See the original page.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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 (in the method)
Main protein that becomes tender from slow stewing and browns in the oven.
Flour
Coats the chicken and thickens the gravy as its starch swells with heat.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the chicken brown.
Thickened milk
Forms the creamy body of the gravy and adds richness.

The step that matters

Scald the gravy well. Flour thickens only when heated fully, and bringing the gravy to a proper simmer swells the starch and cooks out the raw flour taste. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin or pasty.

“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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