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Prairie Chickens

Prairie chickens are cleaned, seasoned, grilled, buttered, and served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Prairie Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and split the prairie chickens down the back.

  2. Wipe them carefully and season well with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Grill and serve

  1. Place the chickens on a grill over a clear, hot fire.

  2. Turn them occasionally until fully cooked.

  3. Transfer to a hot dish, butter generously, and serve on buttered toast.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Prairie chickens
Provide the meat that is cooked over the fire until tender and fully done.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the finished birds and the toast.
Bread
Serves as a base that soaks up butter and juices under the chicken.

The step that matters

Turn them occasionally until fully cooked. Over a hot fire the outside can char before the thick parts of the bird cook through. Turning evenly exposes all sides to heat, so the meat cooks through without burning on the surface.

“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.

More prairie chicken recipes

Roasted 12Stew 8Roast 7Broiled 5Fried 4Stewed 4 See all 10 →

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