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Fried Chicken

Fried chicken pieces coated in flour, egg, and cracker, then fried in lard and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the chicken

  1. Heat lard in a skillet and fry the chicken pieces until done.

  2. Remove the fried chicken and set aside.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In the same lard, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with salt and pepper until smooth.

  2. Add 1 cup of milk or cream to the flour mixture and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fried chicken.

Coat and fry again

  1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

  2. Beat 2 eggs with a little milk.

  3. Dip the chicken in the egg mixture.

  4. Coat the chicken with grated cracker.

  5. Fry the coated chicken in butter until brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Is the main protein that is cooked through and browned by frying.
Flour
Thickens the milk or cream into a smooth sauce.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and richness.
Eggs
Bind the grated cracker coating to the chicken.
Grated cracker
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the coated chicken in butter until brown. Butter browns and burns at a lower temperature than lard, so heat must be controlled to get a golden crust without scorching the coating before the chicken is cooked through.

“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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