Skip to main content
Main

Roast Chicken

A whole chicken stuffed with a breadcrumb and herb mixture, then baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the chicken

  1. Ask the butcher to draw the chicken.

  2. Remove the legs, wings, and neck for fricassee.

  3. Rinse the chicken inside and out in cold water. Wipe the chicken dry.

Make the stuffing

  1. Prepare the stuffing.

  2. In a covered vessel, steam the bread crumbs with cold water for 30 minutes.

  3. Mix in black pepper, salt, thyme, onion, and butter to form a paste. Add more water if needed.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the chicken. Sew the chicken up with coarse darning cotton.

  2. Dredge the chicken with flour and black pepper.

  3. Place the chicken on a meat rack in a deep pot. Add boiling water.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 to 4 hours, depending on the toughness of the fowl.

  5. Remove the cover for the last 30 minutes. Sprinkle with salt.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind with butter and seasonings to form the stuffing paste.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the stuffing.
Flour
Dredging coat that helps the chicken skin brown and crisp during baking.
Fowl
Main protein; its toughness determines how long it needs to cook.

The step that matters

Bake for the full time, covering and uncovering as directed. Low, long baking lets connective tissue in a tough fowl break down into tender meat. Removing the cover at the end allows the skin to dry and brown. Stopping early leaves the meat tough and the skin pale.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, thyme, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, thyme, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More roast chicken recipes

Stuffed 5Country 3French 3 See all 197 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes