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Fried Chickens

Fried Chickens are pieces of chicken fried in hot fat, served with a parsley garnish and a cream gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 up the chickens as for fricassee.

  2. Soak in cold water for 1 minute, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll each piece in flour and fry in hot fat until golden brown.

Fry the garnish and bacon

  1. Place on a hot serving dish.

  2. Fry whole bunches of parsley in the remaining fat and garnish the chicken.

  3. For optional bacon, fry slices until crisp, then set aside.

  4. In the same pan, cook the chicken in the leftover fat.

Make the gravy

  1. To make the gravy, stir 1 tablespoon of flour into the fat until it begins to brown.

  2. Gradually add 1 cup of heated cream or milk mixed with a tiny bit of baking soda, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add 1 heaping teaspoon of minced parsley and pour 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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms a crisp golden coating on the chicken and thickens the gravy when browned in fat.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness to the gravy, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Baking soda
Raises the gravy's pH slightly, which helps it brown and keeps it smooth.

The step that matters

Frying the coated chicken until golden brown. Frying at a steady hot temperature sets the flour coating into a crisp crust and cooks the meat through. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and turns soft, and if it is too hot the outside browns before the inside is cooked.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, 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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