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Broiled Chicken

Broiled chicken served with a gravy made from boiled chicken organs and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and broil

  1. Cut the chicken open on the back and pound it flat on a meat board.

  2. Place the chicken on a grill over hot coals and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cover with a pie tin weighted down to ensure even cooking.

  4. Broil for 20 to 30 minutes until browned but not burnt.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, boil the liver, gizzard, and heart in 1 pint of water until tender.

  2. Chop the cooked organs finely and mix with flour, butter, and pepper.

  3. Stir in 1 cup of sweet cream into the water used for boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Once the chicken is done, dip it in the gravy while hot.

  2. Return the chicken to the grill for 1 minute.

  3. Place it in the gravy and let boil for 30 seconds before serving.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 + livertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together383 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which browns and sets firmly under the broiler.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour into the gravy.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the gravy.
Liver, gizzard, and heart
Simmered in water to make a savoury base that flavours the gravy.

The step that matters

Broil until browned but not burnt. High direct heat browns the skin through Maillard reactions, but too much heat or time burns the surface before the meat inside is cooked. Weighting the chicken flat helps it cook evenly.

“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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