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Chicken Pot Roast

A pot roast made with small chickens, butter, carrots, water, parsley, and carrot greens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a deep pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped carrots and parsley, cooking until hot.

Cook the chicken

  1. Add the chickens, turning and basting until browned.

  2. Pour in the water and cook very slowly, turning the chickens often.

  3. When nearly done, stir in the chopped carrot greens.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Chicken + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through slowly in the pot.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the chicken brown and carries flavor.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the butter.
Water
Creates moisture in the pot so the chicken cooks gently without drying.

The step that matters

Cook the chicken very slowly after adding the water. Low, gentle heat with frequent turning keeps the chicken tender and moist while it cooks through. Rushing with high heat can dry the outside before the inside is done.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, parsley. 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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