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Chicken Saute

Whole chickens are coated in flour and sautéed in rendered pork fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Saute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Remove pin feathers, clean, singe, and disjoint the chickens.

  2. Dip the chickens quickly into cold milk and drain.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then dredge thickly with flour.

Cook

  1. Cut the fat salt pork into ¼ inch cubes and render in a frying pan.

  2. Remove scraps and cook the chicken slowly in the fat until well browned and tender.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  2. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Chickens
Provide the meat that becomes tender and browned during slow cooking.
Flour
Forms a thick coating that browns in the fat and crisps the outside.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat for frying the chicken, adding browning and savory flavor.
Cold milk
Helps the flour adhere to the chicken before dredging.

The step that matters

Cook the chicken slowly in the fat. Low, slow heat lets the chicken cook through and become tender while the flour coating browns evenly. High heat would scorch the flour before the meat is cooked inside.

“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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