Why it works: Chicken and butter 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 Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Remove pin feathers from the chicken and singe the chicken.
Wipe the chicken.
Make a clean cut through the backbone from the back of the neck.
Press open the chicken.
Remove entrails, ribs, and breast bone.
Clip the tendons at the joints.
Season and broil
Brush the chicken with melted butter.
Sprinkle the chicken with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Place the chicken in a well-greased broiler.
Broil the chicken for 20 minutes under the gas flame, turning to brown evenly.
Reduce the flame.
Cover the chicken closely.
Let the chicken steam for 10 to 15 minutes until cooked through.
Serve
Remove the chicken to a hot serving platter.
Spread the chicken with Maitre d' Hotel Butter.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Whole chicken
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as the flesh firms and sets.
- Melted butter
- Carries heat to the skin and promotes browning and a rich flavour.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the skin and draws out surface moisture to help it crisp.
The step that matters
Turning under the broiler. Broiler heat is intense and uneven, so the chicken can scorch on the side facing the flame. Turning it regularly lets the skin brown evenly while the interior cooks through.
“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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