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Panned Chicken

A whole chicken baked in butter and flour, basted with butter and water, served with a cream gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Panned Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the chickens in a pan, skin side up.

  3. Rub the chickens with softened butter.

  4. Dredge the chickens with flour, salt, and pepper.

Roast

  1. Bake in the hot oven for 10 minutes.

  2. Baste the chickens with butter and a little hot water.

  3. Continue cooking for 30 minutes, basting three times, using no more than ½ cup of water and the rest as butter.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the chickens to a hot dish.

  2. Make gravy from the fat in the pan by adding 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. When the gravy is browned, add 1 cup of thin cream or white stock.

  4. Cook the gravy until smooth, stirring constantly, and pour it around the chicken.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Chickens
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through in the hot oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown as it bastes the chicken.
Flour
Dredged on the chicken to help form a browned crust, and used to thicken the gravy.
Thin cream or white stock
Liquid that turns the browned pan fat into a smooth, creamy gravy.

The step that matters

Basting the chicken. Spooning fat and liquid over the birds keeps the surface moist while the skin browns. Using too much water can steam the chicken instead of roasting it, and skin may turn pale and soft.

“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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