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Broiled Spring Chicken

A young chicken is split, flattened, broiled, and served with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Broiled Spring Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Split the chicken down the back and remove all entrails.

  2. Wipe the chicken dry and flatten it with a rolling pin.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and place the chicken inside for 5 minutes to heat.

Broil and serve

  1. Dip the chicken in melted butter and place it on a hot grill, inside down.

  2. Broil for 15 minutes, turning once.

  3. When cooked, place on a hot platter and spread with butter, salt, and pepper or maitre d'hotel butter.

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. Butter + peppertop 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

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish; cooks through as the protein being broiled.
Melted butter
Coats the skin to add richness and help it brown under direct heat.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic seasoning to the finished chicken.

The step that matters

Dip the chicken in melted butter and place it on a hot grill, inside down.. The butter coating helps the skin brown and keeps the surface from drying out, and a hot grill starts searing right away. Starting inside down sets the cut side first, so turning once later cooks the chicken evenly.

“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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