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Smothered Chickens

Smothered Chickens are roasted chickens smothered in butter and gravy, thickened with browned flour and seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Smothered Chickens

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 and roast

  1. Prepare the chickens for broiling by splitting each down the back.

  2. Lay them flat in a dripping pan and pour 1 cup of boiling water over them.

  3. Cover tightly with another pan and roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  4. Lift the cover and baste the chickens freely with butter.

  5. After 10 minutes, baste with gravy from the dripping pan.

  6. In another 5 minutes, baste with melted butter abundantly.

  7. Keep the chickens covered except while basting, and increase the heat until done.

  8. They should be coffee-colored all over.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Dish the chickens, season with salt and pepper, and cover.

  2. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, adding a little hot water, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  3. Boil the gravy and serve a few spoonfuls over the chickens, with the rest in a gravy tureen.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which cooks through and becomes tender under cover.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the skin brown as it is basted over the birds.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Basting while keeping the cover on. Basting with butter and gravy keeps the skin moist and promotes even browning. Lifting the cover too often lets heat and moisture escape, slowing cooking and stalling the colour.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper, 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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