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Baked Spring Chicken

A chicken baked with bacon, butter, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Baked Spring 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.

Prepare

  1. Split the chickens down the back and cut each piece in half.

  2. Wash and dry the chicken pieces thoroughly.

Season and bake

  1. Place in a larded dripping pan and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Top each piece with a slice of bacon.

  3. If you prefer, baste with melted butter and water instead of bacon.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which cooks through in the oven to become tender.
Bacon
Melts fat over the chicken, adding flavor and helping keep the meat moist as it bakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat that helps the chicken brown and stay moist when used for basting.

The step that matters

Wash and dry the chicken pieces thoroughly.. Surface moisture must evaporate before the skin can brown. Wet skin steams in the hot oven, so drying the pieces well helps them crisp and brown.

“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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