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Chicken Breaded

Breaded chicken pieces baked with butter and water, served with a gravy made from flour, butter, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Chicken Breaded

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Coat and season

  1. Roll the chicken pieces in the beaten eggs and then in the bread crumbs.

  2. Season with parsley, pepper, and salt.

Bake and make gravy

  1. Place in a dripping pan, dot with butter, and add a little water.

  2. Bake slowly, basting often until done.

  3. Remove the chicken and make gravy by adding flour smoothed with butter and cream or milk.

  4. Season the gravy to taste.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through slowly in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the chicken so the coating adheres during baking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating around the chicken as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface of the chicken brown while baking.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy when combined with butter and cream or milk.

The step that matters

Bake slowly, basting often until done. Low oven heat cooks the chicken gently through, while frequent basting with the pan juices keeps the surface from drying out and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, bread, pepper, butter, flour, cream. 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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