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Deviled Fried Chicken

A fried chicken dish marinated in oil, lemon juice, paprika, salt, and mustard, then coated in flour and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,816 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Deviled Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the chicken by jointing it neatly.

  2. In a bowl, mix oil, lemon juice, paprika, salt, and mustard.

  3. Soak the chicken in the mixture for 15 minutes, rubbing it in well.

  4. Roll the chicken in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the chicken in boiling deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain the chicken and serve on a hot folded napkin or tissue paper.

  3. Garnish with cresses and serve with piquant sauce or mayonnaise.

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. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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

Chicken
Provides the meat that is cooked through while the crust turns golden and crisp.
Oil
Carries the paprika and mustard into the chicken and adds richness to the seasoning.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the marinade and the dish.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns in the hot fat and gives the chicken a crisp crust.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that gives the marinade its piquant bite.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling deep fat. The fat must be hot enough to set the flour coating quickly and brown it. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy and pale rather than crisp and golden.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mustard, flour. 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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