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Baked Chickens

A simple baked chicken recipe with butter, salt, pepper, and giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Chickens

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Dress the chickens and cut them in half.

  2. Soak the chickens in cold water for 30 minutes, then wipe them dry.

  3. Place the chickens in a dripping pan, bone side down, without water.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Bake and finish

  1. Bake the chickens for 30 minutes if they are young.

  2. Remove the chickens from the oven and season them with butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Stack the halves closely in a pan over boiling water, covering them to keep moist.

  4. Boil the giblets in a little water.

  5. Thicken the broth with the giblet water and add chopped giblets.

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. Chicken + buttertop 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

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and the meat stay moist.
Giblets
Simmered in water to flavour and thicken the broth for serving.

The step that matters

Stack the halves closely over boiling water, covered. Covering the chicken traps steam so the meat stays moist, while the boiling water below provides gentle, humid heat. Uncovered or too little steam can dry the meat.

“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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