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Fried Breast of Chicken with Corn Fritters

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Nutmeg and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,907 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fried Breast of Chicken with Corn Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Singed, drawn, washed, and simmer the spring chickens until barely done.

  2. Remove from heat, cool, and skin the chickens.

  3. Remove the breasts and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and powdered thyme.

  4. Roll the seasoned breasts in melted butter, then in flour, and finally in beaten eggs.

  5. Fry the coated breasts in hot fat until golden and cooked through.

  6. Drain the fried chicken and serve with Sauce Supreme poured underneath.

  7. Garnish with small corn fritters and watercress.

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. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, egg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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