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Roast Fried Chicken

A whole chicken, jointed, coated in egg and cracker crumbs, and roasted in butter until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Roast Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Joint the chicken and dust it with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the chicken in the beaten eggs, then coat it with salted and peppered cracker crumbs.

  3. Melt the butter in a baking pan and place the chicken in it.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the pan closely and roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes or until browned.

  2. Serve hot and dry, with a good white sauce on the side.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Eggs
Bind the cracker crumbs to the chicken so the coating holds during roasting.
Cracker crumbs
Form the crisp, browned coating on the outside of the chicken.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the coating brown in the hot pan.
Whole chicken
Provides the meat that is cooked through in the oven.

The step that matters

Cover the pan closely and roast. Covering traps steam so the chicken cooks through gently, while the uncovered finish lets the coating brown. Leaving the cover on too long can leave the coating soft, so check for browning near the end of the time.

“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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