Skip to main content
Main

Steamed Fried Chicken

A chicken dish cooked by frying in lard and then slow steaming.

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

Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Steamed Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut up the chicken and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Drain the chicken and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll each piece in flour.

Fry and steam

  1. Heat hot lard in a pan and lay the chicken pieces in it.

  2. Brown both sides carefully and quickly under a light cover.

  3. Remove the light cover and use a milk crock to cover the chicken.

  4. Set the pan where it will cook very slowly for one hour, turning occasionally.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 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
Provides the meat that is browned and then cooked through by slow steam.
Flour
Forms a coating that browns in the hot lard and helps crisp the outside.
Hot lard
Conducts heat for browning and adds fat that gives the skin a rich, crisp surface.

The step that matters

Browning both sides under a light cover. Browning should be careful and quick so the flour coating colors without burning. Browning builds flavor and a golden crust, which the slow steaming later cannot create.

“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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes