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Fried Chicken

Chicken pieces coated in flour and fried in lard and butter, then cooked slowly with boiling water.

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 ↓

Fried Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Coat each piece of chicken well with the flour mixture.

Fry and bake

  1. Heat lard and butter in an iron skillet.

  2. Add the chicken pieces to the skillet.

  3. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for about 1 hour, turning the chicken once.

  4. For an old chicken, fry quickly, then place in a hot casserole.

  5. Pour boiling water over the chicken and cook slowly in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

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. Flour + peppertop 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
Forms a dry coating that crisps during frying and helps brown the chicken.
Lard
Fat for frying that conducts heat evenly and gives the crust a rich flavor and crispness.
Butter
Adds milk solids that brown and contribute a toasty, savory aroma to the crust.
Boiling water
Creates steam in the covered oven that cooks the chicken through gently and keeps it moist.

The step that matters

Reduce heat to low and cover the skillet. Covered, low-heat cooking lets the thick pieces cook through before the outside burns. Turning the chicken once helps the coating brown evenly on both sides.

“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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