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Fried Chicken

Fried chicken pieces cooked in butter, served with a giblet gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Draw, singe, and remove all pin feathers from the chickens.

  2. Cut off the wings, neck, and legs.

  3. Cover the wings, necks, and giblets (except the livers) with cold water and a pinch of salt.

  4. Boil until very tender.

  5. Wipe each chicken piece with a clean, damp cloth.

  6. Coat thickly with pastry flour mixed with salt and pepper.

Fry and cook

  1. Heat a large piece of butter in two frying pans until very hot.

  2. Place the chicken breasts skin-side down in the pans.

  3. Brown the breasts nicely.

  4. Add the backs, legs, and wings.

  5. Turn each piece over onto the bone side and cover tightly.

  6. Pour a little giblet gravy into the pans to create steam.

  7. Cook slowly for 15-20 minutes.

  8. Transfer the chicken to a hot platter.

  9. Garnish with parsley.

Make the gravy

  1. Sift 1 tablespoon of flour into the hot butter.

  2. Stir in the giblet liquid.

  3. Allow to thicken while stirring.

  4. Chop the giblets finely.

  5. Add to the gravy.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Serve in a gravy boat, not poured over the chicken.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Spring chickens
Provide the meat that is browned, steamed, and served as the main dish.
Pastry flour
Forms a light coating that browns in the butter and gives the chicken a crisp crust.
Butter
Conducts heat for browning the chicken and adds richness and flavor to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the giblet liquid into a smooth gravy as it cooks in the butter.

The step that matters

Cook slowly under cover after browning. Once the pieces are browned, low covered cooking with a little liquid steams the meat so it becomes tender through the thick parts without the crust burning. Cooking too fast or uncovered dries the meat and scorches the coating.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, pepper, 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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