Skip to main content
Main

Roast Chickens and Pork

Roast chickens with fat salt pork, basting in butter and gravy, served with thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Roast Chickens and Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the chickens.

  2. Stuff the chickens.

  3. Slice the fat salt pork very thin.

  4. Bind the sliced pork over the breasts and upper parts of the chickens with soft strings.

Roast

  1. Place the chickens in a roasting pan.

  2. Pour in the boiling water.

  3. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for one hour, basting often.

  4. Remove the strings.

  5. Lay the pork in the pan.

  6. Dredge the chickens with flour.

  7. Baste once with butter.

  8. Baste twice with gravy as the flour colors.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Skim the gravy.

  3. Season the gravy with pepper.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Serve the chickens and pork in a gravy boat.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Flour and butter 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 meat that is roasted and served in the gravy.
Fat salt pork
Bastes the chicken with melting fat, keeping the breast meat moist and adding savory flavor.
Flour
Dredged on the chickens, it browns in the oven and helps build a colored crust.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the skin, encouraging browning during basting.

The step that matters

Baste as the flour colors. Basting with gravy only once the flour has started to brown builds color without scorching it. Adding gravy too early can burn the flour, while too little basting leaves the skin pale and dry.

“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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes