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Roast Chicken

Roast chicken prepared by steaming, roasting, and serving with a gravy made from the chicken's gizzard, liver, and heart.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast 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 and steam

  1. Dress and stuff the chicken.

  2. Place the chicken in a steamer over boiling water and steam for 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on size.

Roast

  1. Transfer the chicken to a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Roast until golden brown, basting frequently with water and butter.

  3. Roast for an additional 30 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Boil the gizzard, liver, and heart in a saucepan until cooked, then chop finely.

  2. Add the chopped organs and the cooking water to the gravy in the baking pan.

  3. Thicken the gravy with a little flour.

  4. Season the gravy to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Chicken + livertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together383 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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 and body of the dish, cooked through by steaming then roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour on the roasted skin.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.
Gizzard, liver, and heart
Add concentrated savoury flavour to the gravy once chopped and cooked.

The step that matters

Steaming before roasting. Steaming cooks the chicken through gently before the oven browns the skin. Skipping the full steam time or rushing the roast can leave the centre undercooked or the skin pale, so check that the chicken is fully cooked before serving.

“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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