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Breaded Chicken

Breaded chicken pieces baked with butter and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Breaded Chicken

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Breaded 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. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Roll the chicken pieces in the beaten egg, then in the bread crumbs mixed with parsley, pepper, and salt.

Bake

  1. Place the chicken in a baking pan and dot with butter.

  2. Add a little water to the pan and bake, basting often.

Make the gravy

  1. Once cooked, remove the chicken and make gravy in the pan by adding flour and butter, stirring until smooth.

  2. Add cream or milk to achieve the desired gravy consistency and season to taste.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Chicken
Is the main protein; baking it with basting keeps the meat moist as it cooks.
Eggs
Act as the glue that helps the bread crumb coating stick to the chicken.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating around the chicken as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the chicken brown and enriching the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy when cooked with the fat.
Cream or milk
Loosens the gravy and adds richness, setting its final consistency.

The step that matters

Basting the chicken while it bakes. Regular basting with the pan liquid keeps the surface from drying out and helps the coating brown evenly. The pan juices also carry the flavor that later becomes the gravy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, bread, pepper, butter, flour, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, bread, pepper, butter, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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