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Fried Spring Chicken

Fried chicken pieces seasoned with salt and pepper, coated in flour, fried and steamed with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Spring Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut up the chicken and season it generously with coarse sea salt, then let it rest for a few hours or overnight if possible.

  2. Rinse the chicken pieces and pat them dry.

Fry and steam

  1. In a small bowl, mix the flour with black pepper, then dredge the chicken pieces in the seasoned flour.

  2. In a skillet, heat lard and butter over medium heat.

  3. Fry the chicken pieces slowly with the lid on.

  4. When the chicken is nearly cooked, add 2 teaspoons of water, cover tightly, and let it steam for a few minutes.

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. Pepper + flourtop 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

Chicken
Provides the meat that is cooked through by slow frying and final steaming.
All-purpose flour
Forms a dry coating on the chicken that browns in the hot fat and crisps the skin.
Lard and butter
Conduct heat for frying and add richness and browning to the crust.
Water
Turns to steam under the lid, helping the chicken cook through while keeping it moist.

The step that matters

Adding water and covering the pan. Once the chicken is nearly cooked, the added water turns to steam under a tight lid, cooking the meat through gently. Lifting the lid or adding too much water can wash away or soften the crust built during frying.

“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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