Why it works: Chicken and currant work together. They rank in the top 40% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 101 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Roast Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and roast
Prepare the chicken as you would a turkey.
Roast for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size of the chicken.
Remove the cover to brown the chicken during the last part of roasting.
Serve
Serve with spiced currants, gooseberries, or jelly.
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.
-
Chicken + curranttop 40% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together101 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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 dish; roasting cooks its meat through and browns its skin.
The step that matters
Removing the cover to brown the chicken. Roasting covered traps steam, which keeps the skin pale and soft. Uncovering for the last part of roasting lets dry heat brown the skin through Maillard browning, giving flavor and color.
“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.
More roast chicken recipes
You might also like
Chicken Broth257 recipes
Chicken Soup156 recipes
Creamed Chicken89 recipes
Chicken Panada75 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.