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Virginia Fried Chicken

A fried chicken dish coated in flour, cooked in butter and lard, finished with a 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 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 ↓

Virginia Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Wash the chicken pieces well in cold water.

  2. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll the chicken in flour.

Fry

  1. Heat the butter and lard in a frying pan until hot.

  2. Add the chicken to the pan and cover.

  3. Cook until brown on one side.

  4. Turn the chicken to brown all sides until cooked through.

  5. Remove the chicken to a hot dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour into the hot grease, stirring constantly until browned.

  2. Pour in ½ cup of cream. Stir well.

  3. Pour over the chicken.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 meat, which browns in the fat and cooks through in the pan.
Flour
Forms a coating that browns in the fat and gives the crust its crisp texture.
Butter and lard
Fat for frying that carries heat evenly and browns the coated chicken.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the pan gravy and mellows its flavor.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the grease for the gravy. Flour must be stirred constantly in hot fat so it toasts evenly without scorching; scorched flour gives a bitter taste and lumpy or dark gravy.

“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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