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Broiled Chicken

A whole chicken roasted under a broiler, basted with butter, served on toast with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Broiled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the broiler until red hot.

  2. Season the cleaned chicken with salt and pepper, and rub lard on it.

Cook

  1. Place the chicken on the broiler and turn it from side to side until fully cooked.

  2. Baste the chicken occasionally with butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, remove the chicken and add plenty of butter on top.

  2. Place the chicken in the oven to melt the butter.

  3. Serve the chicken on toast, garnished with parsley.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
The main protein, which cooks through under the broiler's direct heat.
Lard
Fat that conducts heat to the skin, helping it brown and crisp.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture when basted and melted over the finished chicken.
Toast
A base that soaks up the chicken juices and melted butter.

The step that matters

Turning the chicken under the broiler. The broiler's intense top heat can char the outside before thick parts cook through. Turning the chicken evenly from side to side helps it cook through without burning, which matters for both safety and tenderness.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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