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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Heat lard in a pan.
Dust the chicken with flour.
Cook
Place the chicken in the hot lard and cook slowly until ready to turn.
Carefully turn the chicken, add butter, and pour water over it.
Cover the pan and cook slowly until the water has evaporated.
Fry the chicken slowly until it is crisp and brown.
Serve
Remove the chicken and serve while hot.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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 + flourtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,559 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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
- Whole chicken
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by slow frying and steaming.
- Lard
- Conducts heat evenly and fries the skin until crisp and golden.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating that browns and crisps on the outside of the chicken.
- Butter
- Adds richness and browning, with flavor from its milk solids.
- Water
- Steams the chicken under the cover so the meat cooks through before the skin crisps.
The step that matters
Covering the pan while the water evaporates. Water turns to steam under the lid and cooks the meat through, then evaporates, leaving the fat to crisp the coating. Lifting the lid too early or leaving it on too long can leave the skin soft or the coating burnt.
“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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