Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Chicken

A whole chicken roasted under a broiler after seasoning and buttering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dress the chicken, then split it down the back.

  2. Wipe the inside and break the breast bone to flatten it.

  3. Brush the chicken with oil or melted butter, then dust with salt and pepper.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the chicken on a broiler, inside down, cover, and broil slowly for 45 minutes.

  2. When nearly done, turn the chicken and broil the other side.

  3. Transfer to a hot platter, baste with melted butter, season, and garnish with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  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. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Spring chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through slowly to become tender.
Oil or melted butter
Coats the skin, helping it brown evenly and stay moist under the broiler.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the skin and surface, adding flavor and helping browning.

The step that matters

Broil slowly, then turn. Broiling slowly with the chicken inside down and covered lets heat reach the thick meat before the skin over-browns. Turning only when nearly done keeps the second side from drying out.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, 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.

More broiled chicken recipes

with Gravy 7with Mushroom Sauce 6on Toast 5Breast 3Neck 3or Quail 3 See all 165 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes