Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Chicken

A whole chicken is opened, seasoned, broiled, buttered, and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Prepare the chicken by cutting it open in the back and washing it well.

  2. Season the chicken with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Preheat the broiler.

Broil and serve

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

  2. Remove the chicken, add a generous amount of butter, and serve.

  3. Garnish the dish 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

Whole chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to tender meat under the broiler's direct heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the finished chicken.

The step that matters

Turning the chicken under the broiler. Broiler heat is intense and comes from one direction, so the surface can scorch before the thickest parts cook through. Turning the chicken evenly helps it brown uniformly and cook fully without burning.

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.

More broiled chicken recipes

with Gravy 7with Mushroom Sauce 6on Toast 5Breast 3Neck 3or Quail 3 See all 165 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes