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Fried Chickens

A dish of chicken pieces fried in butter and lard, finished with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the chickens and cut them into pieces.

  2. Season the pieces with salt and pepper.

Fry

  1. In a pan, heat the butter and lard together.

  2. Dust flour over each piece of chicken.

  3. Fry the chicken slowly until golden brown on both sides.

  4. Remove the chicken from the pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Add a little water to the pan and bring to a simmer.

  2. Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour and adjust seasoning if needed.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Chicken
Is the main protein; frying cooks it through while the skin turns crisp and golden.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns in the hot fat and gives the crust its crispness.
Butter
Adds rich flavor and browning to the frying fat and thickens the gravy with flour.
Lard
Provides a high-heat frying fat that browns the coating evenly and adds savory flavor.

The step that matters

Fry the chicken slowly until golden brown on both sides. Moderate heat lets the thick pieces cook through before the flour coating over-browns or burns. Too hot a pan can leave the centre raw while the crust darkens too fast.

“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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