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Broiled Chicken on Toast

A whole chicken served on buttered toast with a cream gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Chicken on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

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

  2. Prepare the chicken by boiling it until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Transfer the chicken to a square tin or dripping pan and butter it well.

  4. Season the chicken with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Place the chicken in the oven for a few minutes to brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Moisten and butter the slices of bread and lay them on a platter.

  2. Remove the chicken from the oven and place it over the toast.

  3. In the pan, add ½ cup of cream or milk to the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with a little flour 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

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

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

Butter
Adds richness and helps the chicken brown and the bread taste savoury.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and body to the gravy, making it smoother and richer.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it heats, giving it a coating texture.
Bread
Forms the base that soaks up the juices and gravy under the chicken.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with a little flour. Flour must be cooked into the liquid to avoid a raw, pasty taste and lumps; adding it gradually while stirring keeps the gravy smooth.

“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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