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Spring Chicken. Broiled.

Whole chicken, split and broiled, served on buttered toast with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Spring Chicken. Broiled.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the chicken with a wet towel and split it down the back.

  2. Dress the chicken without breaking the entrails and break the joints of the wings and legs.

  3. Place the chicken between the bars of a buttered double gridiron.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the chicken until brown, ensuring the inside is cooked thoroughly before turning the skin to the fire.

  2. Check that the joints are fully cooked, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Lay the chicken on buttered toast, add a tablespoon of butter on top, and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and skin; browning the skin gives the roasted flavour and colour.
Butter
Greases the gridiron and adds richness and moisture to the toast and finished chicken.

The step that matters

Broil until the inside is cooked before turning skin to the fire. Turning the skin to the fire too early browns the outside quickly while the thick joints and interior are still raw. Cooking the inside through first, with gentle heat, lets the meat cook evenly before the skin is browned.

“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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