Name: Jugged Chicken
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (old or young); 1 tablespoon flour per pound of chicken; coarse sea salt; black pepper; cold water

Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Jugged Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Cut the chicken into pieces as for fried chicken.
Season the flour with salt and pepper.
Roll each piece of chicken in the seasoned flour.

Bake

Pack the chicken closely into an earthenware crock.
Cover the chicken with cold water and cover the crock.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours if using a young chicken, or 3 hours for an old chicken.

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.

Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,559 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, moist cooking in the covered crock.
Flour: Coats the chicken pieces, helping the seasoning cling and thickening the cooking liquid slightly.

“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.