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Maryland Chicken

A fried chicken dish served with a cream sauce, bacon, and corn fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Maryland Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut up the chickens into five pieces each.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then lightly dust with flour.

  3. Dip the pieces in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

Fry and plate

  1. Fry in lard for eight minutes on each side until golden brown.

  2. Pour cream sauce in the center of a dish.

  3. Arrange the chicken in a crown shape over the sauce.

  4. Roll the bacon slices and arrange them nicely around the chicken.

  5. Add the corn fritters around the chicken.

  6. Serve with hot cream sauce made from flour, butter, hot milk, seasoning, and cream.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Spring chickens
Provide the main meat, which the coating and frying turn crisp and golden.
Beaten eggs
Act as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the chicken pieces.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when the chicken is fried.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce by gelatinizing with butter and hot milk.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour to the finished plate.

The step that matters

Frying the breaded chicken. Breaded chicken must fry long enough to cook through and brown, but not so hot that the coating scorches before the meat is done. Steady heat gives an even golden crust.

“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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