Skip to main content
Main

Smothered Chicken

Smothered Chicken is a roasted chicken served with a gravy made from its drippings, flour, butter, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Smothered Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Split the chicken as for broiling and wipe it dry with a cloth.

  3. Spread butter all over the chicken, then dust with flour and pepper.

Bake and brown

  1. Place the chicken skin side down on a meat rack in a dripping pan.

  2. Pour in 1 cup of boiling water and add a few sprigs of parsley.

  3. Cover closely and bake for 30 minutes, or longer if necessary.

  4. Turn the chicken skin side up and brown uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Cut up the giblets and cook them tender in 1 cup of water.

  2. Add 1 spoonful of flour and a lump of butter to the giblet water.

  3. Stir this mixture into the dripping pan and season with salt, pepper, parsley, or sweet marjoram.

  4. Joint the chicken for easy carving, but do not separate it.

  5. Serve on a platter with the gravy poured around.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + marjoramtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Chicken
Provides the main protein; covering while baking keeps the meat moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and the gravy taste rounded.
Flour
Dusted on the chicken and stirred into the giblet liquid to thicken the gravy.

The step that matters

Covering the chicken while it bakes. Baking closely covered traps steam so the meat cooks through gently and stays moist; uncovering too early can dry it before the skin browns.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, pepper, parsley, egg. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes