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 Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Place the chicken pieces in a stewpan with enough water to prevent scorching.
Add a little coarse sea salt.
Cook the chicken until it is dry.
Grill
Place the pieces on a hot, buttered grill over coals.
Turn the chicken frequently to prevent scorching.
Butter the chicken.
Season to taste.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the protein and meat that becomes tender and browned during cooking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the chicken brown and develop flavor on the grill.
The step that matters
Turn the chicken frequently on the grill. Frequent turning spreads the heat across the pieces and reduces the chance of the surface scorching before the meat is cooked through.
“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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