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Chicken Baked with Ham

A whole chicken wrapped in ham, roasted with stock, butter, water, onion, parsley, mushrooms, and brown roux gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Chicken Baked with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stuff and truss the chicken.

  2. Wrap the chicken in thin slices of ham and bind the ham tightly to the chicken with cotton string.

  3. Place the chicken in a covered roaster.

  4. Pour in the hot consomme or stock, along with some butter and water.

  5. Sprinkle with onion and parsley.

Roast

  1. Cover the roaster.

  2. Cook slowly for 20 minutes per pound.

  3. Uncover the roaster.

  4. Baste the chicken four times during cooking.

  5. When a skewer comes out easily and clean, remove the chicken.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Undo the ham wrappings.

  2. Place the chicken on a hot platter with the ham cut into strips.

  3. Keep the chicken warm while you thicken the gravy with brown roux and pepper.

  4. Add the chopped mushrooms to the gravy.

  5. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  6. Serve the gravy in a boat alongside 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently to stay moist and tender.
Boiled corned ham
Wraps the chicken, adding salty, savoury flavour that seasons the meat as it cooks.
Consomme or stock
Provides liquid in the roaster that keeps the chicken moist and forms the base of the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes richness and gentle browning of the chicken skin.
Brown roux
Thickens the gravy so it coats the chicken and the ham strips.
Mushrooms
Add earthy aroma and savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Removing the chicken when a skewer comes out easily and clean. Cooking slowly and testing for doneness with a skewer helps ensure the chicken is cooked through without drying out. Removing it too late dries the meat, while too early leaves the centre undercooked.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, butter, onion, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, butter, onion, mushroom, pepper. 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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