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Roast Chicken

A whole chicken roasted with pork grease, flour, and simmered in water, seasoned with salt and pepper, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Roast Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Roast

  1. Draw the chicken.

  2. Stuff the chicken.

  3. Bake the chicken like a turkey.

Make the gravy

  1. Cut the chicken into even-sized pieces and wipe dry.

  2. Brown the chicken pieces thoroughly in hot fat.

  3. Add flour and turn the chicken until the flour is browned, being careful not to scorch it.

  4. Pour boiling water over the chicken to cover it.

  5. Simmer on low heat until tender, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve in a border of rice.

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 + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  2. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as slow simmering breaks down its connective tissue.
Grease from pork scraps
Hot fat that browns the chicken pieces and carries savory flavor through the dish.
Flour
Browns in the fat and thickens the cooking liquid, adding body and a toasted flavor.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour needs enough heat to turn golden and nutty, but it scorches quickly. Scorched flour tastes bitter and dark, and it spoils the color and flavor of the gravy.

“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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