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Braised Chicken

A whole chicken braised with vegetables, salt pork, and water, then served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Braised Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Prepare the chicken for roasting.

  2. Dredge the chicken with flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Brown the chicken all over in hot butter or chicken fat.

Roast

  1. Place the chicken in a roasting pan on a bed of sliced onion, carrot, turnip, and celery.

  2. Cover the chicken with 4 slices of salt pork.

  3. Add 2 cups of water and cover closely with another pan.

  4. Roast for 3 hours, basting often and replenishing the water to keep about 2 cups in the pan.

Serve

  1. Remove the chicken to a platter and garnish with the vegetables.

  2. Make a gravy from the liquid in the pan 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.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long, moist cooking.
Flour
Coats the chicken so it browns well and helps thicken the pan gravy.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the chicken as it cooks.
Onion
Flavors the braising liquid and gravy as it softens and releases sweetness.

The step that matters

Keep the water level steady during roasting. Long roasting can dry out and scorch the pan. Replenishing the water and basting keep moisture in the pan, so the meat braises gently and the drippings stay usable for gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, pepper, butter, carrot, turnip, celery):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, pepper, butter, carrot, turnip, celery. 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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