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Chicken Fried

Chicken dredged in flour and fried in butter and lard, served with a flour-thickened milk or cream gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Heat equal amounts of butter and lard in a hot frying pan.

  2. If the chicken is pre-cooked, it needs no additional salt.

  3. Optionally, brown slices of salt pork in the frying pan.

  4. Remove the pork, then dredge the chicken in flour or roll it in egg and bread crumbs.

Fry the chicken

  1. Dredge the chicken in flour and fry until golden brown on each side.

  2. Fry the chicken slowly, turning frequently to prevent burning.

Make the gravy

  1. To make gravy, stir 2 tablespoons of flour into the hot fat until brown.

  2. For the gravy, stir 2 tablespoons of flour into the fat, then add ½ cup of coffee and 2 tablespoons of sweet cream.

  3. Add 1 pint of sweet milk or cream, along with salt and pepper, and serve in a gravy boat.

  4. Bring the gravy to a boil and serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

Flour
Forms a coating that browns in the fat and thickens the gravy.
Butter
Adds rich flavor and browning to the frying fat.
Lard
Gives a high-heat frying fat that browns the chicken crisply.
Sweet milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the gravy a smooth, creamy body.

The step that matters

Fry the chicken slowly, turning frequently. Sugars and proteins on the surface brown quickly, so high heat or infrequent turning can scorch the coating before the chicken cooks through. Slow frying and regular turning let the crust brown evenly while the interior cooks.

“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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