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Southern Fried Chicken

Fried chicken pieces seasoned with salt and pepper, dredged in flour, cooked in lard and butter, served with a milk gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Southern Fried Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Remove pin feathers and singe the chicken.

  2. Remove the organs as directed for roast chicken.

  3. Cut the chicken into pieces, wash, and dry carefully.

  4. Place the chicken in an earthen or enamel dish and refrigerate for at least 12 hours.

Fry and finish

  1. Heat an iron skillet or frying pan and melt the lard.

  2. Season each piece of chicken with salt and black pepper, then dredge in flour.

  3. Fry the chicken in hot fat until a slight crust forms on the side next to the fire.

  4. Turn each piece over, add butter, and cover the skillet for the remainder of the cooking.

  5. Once tender, remove the chicken to a hot dish.

  6. Pour out the fat from the frying pan, reserving 2 tablespoons for gravy.

  7. Make chicken gravy using milk as the liquid and serve it in a separate dish.

  8. Garnish the chicken with curled 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the main body of the dish; its fat and connective tissue become tender during covered cooking.
Lard
Fries the chicken in hot fat, producing a crisp, browned crust while carrying flavor.
Flour
Dredging coats the chicken, helping form a crust that browns and crisps in the hot fat.
Butter
Added near the end of frying, it adds richness and browning flavor to the chicken.
Milk (in the method)
Serves as the liquid in the gravy, adding body and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Fry until a crust forms, then cover to finish. The chicken must be floured and fried in hot fat so a crust sets and browns before covering. Covering too early traps steam and softens the crust, while too cool a fat lets the flour absorb grease instead of crisping.

“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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