Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Broiled Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Light the alcohol on a plate.
Pass the chickens over the flame to singe off any hair.
Split the chickens in half, clean, wash, and dry them.
Flatten the chickens with a cleaver.
Broil and serve
Broil the chickens on moderate heat until well colored on both sides.
Serve on a hot dish with butter, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and parsley mixed together.
Garnish with watercress.
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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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Parsley + watercresstop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together469 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together579 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 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
- Spring chickens
- Provide the meat that is cooked and browned under the broiler.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the serving sauce and carries the seasonings.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce served with the chicken.
The step that matters
Broil the chickens on moderate heat until well colored on both sides. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction between proteins and sugars at the surface, which needs dry skin and steady heat. Turning the birds so both sides brown evenly gives color and flavor, while too high a heat can scorch the outside before the inside cooks through.
“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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