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Broiled Chickens

A dish of young small chickens seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, broiled until hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Broiled Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Split the chickens through the back and skewer the legs and wings down firmly.

  2. Broil the chickens slowly for 20 minutes.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and plenty of butter.

  4. Serve very 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

Young small chickens
Provide the main protein; splitting and skewering them flat helps them cook evenly under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown and taste savory.

The step that matters

Broil the chickens slowly. Slow broiling at a moderate distance lets the thick meat cook through before the skin over-browns or burns. Splitting the birds flat keeps the thickest parts from lagging behind the thin edges.

“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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