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
Prepare and cook
Split the chickens through the back and skewer the legs and wings down firmly.
Broil the chickens slowly for 20 minutes.
Season and serve
Season with salt, pepper, and plenty of butter.
Serve very hot.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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; their small size lets them cook through in a short broil.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface 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. Skewering the legs and wings flat keeps the pieces even so they cook at the same rate.
“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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