Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Chicken

A whole chicken seasoned, broiled, and served with a butter‑lemon‑parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, wipe, and split the chicken down the back, leaving the breast intact.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then wash all over with melted butter or salad oil.

  3. Grease a clean broiler and lay the chicken on it, breast side up.

Broil

  1. Cover with a tin cover or an inverted pan until juices threaten to smoke.

  2. Lift the broiler occasionally to avoid smoking and broil for about 10 minutes per pound.

  3. When half done, turn the chicken to cook the upper side.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove to a hot platter and generously coat with a mixture of butter, lemon juice, and minced parsley.

  2. Serve hot, garnished with curled parsley or watercress.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the main protein, which cooks through and browns under direct heat.
Melted butter or salad oil
Coats the skin so it browns evenly and does not dry out under the broiler.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and fat coating the cooked chicken.

The step that matters

Covering until the juices threaten to smoke. Covering the chicken at the start traps moisture and slows surface browning, so the meat cooks through gently. Lifting the broiler occasionally keeps the drippings from smoking and burning.

“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.

More broiled chicken recipes

with Gravy 7with Mushroom Sauce 6on Toast 5Breast 3Neck 3or Quail 3 See all 165 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes