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Broiled Chickens

A dish of chickens stewed and then broiled in butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Broiled Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Steam the chickens

  1. Place the chickens in a kettle with 2 tablespoons of water and cover tightly.

  2. Steam on the back of the stove for about 2 hours, then remove the chickens carefully.

Make the butter sauce

  1. Add butter to the liquid.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Bring the liquid to a boil.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the chickens.

  2. Dip each chicken in the prepared butter.

  3. Lay the chickens on a hot platter.

  4. Pour the remaining hot butter over the chickens.

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 + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the chicken with fat and flavor.

The step that matters

Keep the kettle tightly covered while steaming. A tight lid traps the steam around the chickens, keeping them moist and cooking the meat gently over a long period. If steam escapes, the chickens can dry out and the liquid can evaporate.

“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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