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Smothered Chicken

A whole chicken cooked slowly in water and butter, then served with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Smothered Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean the chicken, remove the neck, and split it down the back.

  2. Wipe the chicken with a damp towel.

  3. Season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper.

  4. Dredge the chicken with flour.

Cook

  1. Place the chicken, inside down, in a small baking tin and add 1 cup of water.

  2. Cook slowly at 300°F (150°C) for one hour, basting every ten minutes after the first twenty minutes.

  3. If the chicken is lacking fat, add 1 tablespoon of butter.

  4. When done, transfer the chicken to a hot platter.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy in the pan with a little flour and ½ cup of water.

  2. Season the gravy with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Pour the gravy over the chicken and serve immediately.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Coats the chicken and thickens the pan gravy, giving it body and a light browned surface.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the chicken when it is dry, aiding browning and flavour.
Water
Creates steam and moisture in the pan, keeping the chicken tender during slow cooking.

The step that matters

Cook slowly and baste. Low heat cooks the chicken through gently, while regular basting with the pan liquid keeps the meat moist and builds flavour in the drippings used for the gravy.

“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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