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Fried Chickens

Fried Chickens are chicken pieces fried in hot fat, served with parsley garnish and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut up the chickens as for fricassee.

  2. Soak the pieces in cold water for 1 minute without wiping.

  3. Season each piece with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Roll each piece in flour and fry in hot fat until golden brown.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Place the fried pieces on a hot serving dish.

  2. Fry the parsley in the remaining fat and garnish the chicken.

  3. For gravy, stir flour in the fat until browned.

  4. Gradually add heated cream or milk mixed with a tiny bit of baking soda, stirring until smooth.

  5. Add minced parsley and pour the gravy over the chicken.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
The main protein, cut into pieces that cook through while the outside fries crisp.
Flour
Coats the chicken to form a golden, crisp crust when fried, and thickens the gravy.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and body to the gravy, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Baking soda
Raises the gravy's pH, which helps it brown and keeps it smooth when mixed with the cream.

The step that matters

Frying the coated chicken in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the flour coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisp, and the chicken may cook unevenly. Frying at a steady high heat sets the crust quickly and seals in moisture.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, cream):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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