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Breaded Spring Chicken

Breaded chicken pieces served with a cream and parsley gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Breaded Spring Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces.

  2. Season the pieces with salt and pepper.

Bread the chicken

  1. Beat the eggs lightly and mix them with the milk.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Dip each piece of chicken into the egg mixture.

  4. Coat each piece with bread crumbs.

  5. Place the chicken on a baking pan.

Bake and make the gravy

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until cooked through.

  2. Combine the cream, parsley, and butter in a saucepan.

  3. Boil together to make gravy.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the flour and bread crumbs to the chicken, forming a coating.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the egg mixture so it clings to the chicken pieces.
Bread crumbs
Form the crisp, browned outer crust when baked.
Cream
Provides richness and body to the gravy as it reduces.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and smooth texture in the cream sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the cream sauce gently. Cream can curdle or scorch if it boils too hard or too long. Simmering gently keeps the sauce smooth while it thickens slightly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, egg, milk, flour, bread, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, egg, milk, flour, bread, cream. 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.

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