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Baked Chicken

A chicken stuffed with a bread crumb mixture, baked and basted until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the chicken thoroughly.

  2. Grate or pound the stale bread in a bag.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, milk, butter, egg yolk, salt, sage, summer savory, parsley, and pepper.

  2. Fill the chicken with the mixture.

  3. Sew the chicken closed.

Bake

  1. Rub the chicken with butter and dredge with flour.

  2. Bake until cooked through.

  3. Baste the chicken every 10 to 15 minutes with water and butter.

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. Sage + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dry fine bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing, absorbing the milk and butter to give it body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and helps the chicken brown and stay moist while basting.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so the stuffing holds together and stays tender.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds its shape when the chicken is filled and cooked.
Flour
Dredging the chicken creates a dry surface that helps it brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Sew the chicken closed. If the stuffing is packed too loosely or the opening is poorly closed, the stuffing can spill out during baking. Closing the cavity securely keeps the filling in place as it cooks.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, egg, summer savory, parsley, pepper):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, egg, summer savory, parsley, pepper. 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.

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