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Southern Fried Chicken

A fried chicken dish served with a creamy parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Southern Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and fry

  1. Dip each piece of jointed chicken in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the chicken in bacon fat until well done and light brown.

  3. Remove the chicken and keep warm in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the fat, then mix in the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Stir in the cream and cook until smooth and thick.

  3. Add the minced parsley and pour the sauce 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the chicken during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the chicken.
Flour
Thickens the butter and fat mixture to form the base of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, thickening the sauce as it cooks.
Bacon
Its fat provides flavour and browning for frying the chicken.

The step that matters

Frying the chicken until well done. Chicken must reach a fully cooked internal temperature for safety, while over-browning the outside can burn the coating before the centre is done. Frying at a steady, moderate heat lets the interior cook through as the crumb turns golden.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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