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 ↓
Fried Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and fry
Remove the skin from the chicken pieces.
Dip the chicken in beaten eggs, then coat with cracker crumbs.
In a tightly covered pan, cook the chicken in butter until golden brown.
Make the gravy
For the gravy, add flour to the pan and stir to blend.
Thin the gravy with milk and add chopped giblets.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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
- Eggs
- Beaten eggs act as a binder that helps the cracker crumbs stick to the chicken.
- Cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned coating around the chicken as it fries.
- Butter
- Fat that conducts heat for frying and promotes browning and rich flavour.
- Flour
- Thickens the pan drippings to form the body of the gravy.
- Milk
- Liquid that thins the floury gravy and makes it smooth and creamy.
The step that matters
Cook in a tightly covered pan until golden brown. The cover traps steam so the chicken cooks through, while the butter's heat is needed to brown the coating. Too little heat leaves the crumbs pale and soft, and too much burns them before the chicken is cooked inside.
“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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