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Fried Chickens

A dish of battered chicken pieces served with a cream‑based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut each chicken into six pieces, leaving the breast, back, wing, and leg intact.

  2. Sift flour with salt and pepper, then roll each chicken piece in the mixture.

Fry

  1. Heat equal parts butter and lard in a frying pan to ⅓ inch deep.

  2. Fry the chicken pieces, turning them as they brown.

  3. Arrange the cooked chicken on a serving dish, keeping it warm.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In the same pan, add 2‑3 tablespoons of the remaining butter and lard.

  2. Mix 1½ tablespoons of flour with a little cream until smooth, then add to 1 pint of cream.

  3. Stir in salt, pepper, and chopped parsley, then pour into the frying pan.

  4. Simmer the gravy for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

  5. Pour the hot gravy over the chicken and garnish with sprigs of parsley.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter 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

Chickens
Provide the meat that is fried until browned and cooked through.
Flour
Coats the chicken to help it brown and thickens the cream into gravy.
Butter and lard
Fat for frying that browns the coating and carries flavour into the gravy.
Sweet cream
Forms the base of the gravy, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Simmer the gravy gently. Flour thickens cream as it heats, but stirring as it simmers keeps it smooth and prevents lumps or scorching on the pan bottom.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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