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Spanish Chicken

A roasted chicken served with a cream sauce made from bacon fat, flour, cream, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Spanish 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

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

  2. Rub the chicken halves with coarse sea salt, then sprinkle with chopped cloves and Spanish pepper.

  3. Place thin strips of bacon or salt pork over the chicken.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake until the chicken is tender, watching carefully to prevent burning.

  2. Add a little water if necessary.

  3. Once tender, remove the chicken from the pan.

  4. Add flour to the fat left in the pan, then stir in the cream and water.

  5. Cook on the stove for five minutes, stirring constantly.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then pour the sauce around the chicken.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + porktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Broilers
Provide the meat that becomes tender during baking and forms the main dish.
Bacon or salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders over the chicken during baking.
Flour
Thickens the pan fat and cream into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Thin cream
Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Spanish pepper
Adds mild pepper flavor and aroma to the chicken.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce while it cooks. Flour added to fat must be cooked and stirred constantly, or it clumps and tastes raw. Stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the cream thickens into a smooth sauce.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, pork, flour, 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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