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Smotheeed Chicken

Chicken cooked in a butter and water gravy seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Smotheeed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Place the chicken breast side up in a shallow pan.

  2. Pour boiling water over the chicken and cover tightly.

  3. Cook for 30 minutes, basting with hot water.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the chicken with softened butter and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Baste often, keeping it covered, and cook until tender.

  3. Thicken the gravy, then add chopped parsley, salt, and pepper, and pour it over 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, covered cooking.
Boiling water
Creates steam and moisture in the covered pan and forms the base of the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and flavour the chicken.

The step that matters

Keep the chicken covered and basted while it cooks. Trapped steam keeps the meat moist, and regular basting with hot liquid stops the surface drying out while the connective tissue slowly breaks down, so the chicken becomes tender rather than tough.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, 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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