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Panned Chicken

Chicken baked with butter, flour, and gravy made from pan fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Panned 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.

Roast the chicken

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

  2. Place the chickens in a pan, skin side up.

  3. Rub the chickens with softened butter and dredge with flour, salt, and pepper.

  4. Bake in the hot oven for 10 minutes.

  5. Baste with butter and a little hot water.

  6. Cook for 30 minutes, basting three times with no more than ½ cup of water, using the rest as butter.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the chickens to a hot dish.

  2. Make gravy from the fat in the pan by adding 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Cook until brown, then add 1 cup of thin cream or white stock.

  4. Stir until smooth and pour around 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Chickens
Provide the meat that is cooked through by dry oven heat and basting.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the skin brown and keeps the meat moist.
Flour
Coats the chicken and later thickens the pan fat into a smooth gravy.
Thin cream or white stock
Liquid that loosens the browned pan drippings into a smooth, flavourful gravy.

The step that matters

Basting with limited water. Adding too much water during roasting dilutes the pan fat and steams the skin, so it will not brown well. Use small amounts of hot water and baste with fat to keep the skin crisp and the meat moist.

“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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