Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fried Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut up the chicken.
Roll the chicken in flour, then in beaten egg.
Fry
Heat lard and a little butter in a skillet.
Add the chicken to the skillet, season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook until nicely browned.
Turn the chicken and brown the other side.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Is the main protein that is cooked through and browned in the fat.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating that browns and crisps when the chicken fries.
- Egg
- Binds the flour to the chicken so the coating stays on during frying.
- Lard
- Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.
The step that matters
Cooking the chicken covered until nicely browned. Covering traps steam that cooks the chicken through, while the exposed fat and flour brown the crust. Too much heat or too little fat can scorch the coating before the meat is done.
“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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