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Kentucky Fried Chicken

A fried chicken dish seasoned with sage, pepper, and salt, coated in flour and cooked in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the cut-up chicken in salted water for about 1 hour.

  2. In a bowl, mix flour with sage, pepper, and salt.

  3. Roll the chicken pieces in the seasoned flour.

Cook

  1. In a frying pan, heat enough lard to cover the bottom.

  2. Place the pan in a 400°F (200°C) oven to cook the chicken evenly.

  3. Cook until the chicken is nicely browned and thoroughly cooked.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + sagetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together894 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the seasoned coating that crisps and browns on the chicken surface.
Lard
Conducts heat into the coating, promoting even browning and a crisp crust.
Whole chicken
Provides the protein and fat that the coating and frying turn into the main dish.
Dried sage
Adds a savory, herbal aroma to the seasoned flour coating.

The step that matters

Cook until thoroughly cooked and browned. Chicken must reach a safe internal temperature throughout, while the coating browns. Browning alone does not confirm the thickest pieces are cooked through, so check doneness at the bone.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Sagethe original

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