Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Broiled Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the chicken through the back.
Clean the chicken, wash it, and wipe it dry.
Grill and serve
Place the chicken on the grill with the inside facing the fire.
Cook slowly until nearly done, ensuring it is well browned on both sides.
Serve on a hot platter with a little butter, pepper, and salt.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by slow heat over the fire.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the cooked chicken when served.
The step that matters
Cook slowly until nearly done. Slow heat lets the interior cook through before the surface over-browns or dries out. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs steady heat and a dry surface, so the chicken must be wiped dry first.
“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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