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Fried Chicken

Fried chicken prepared by coating in flour and frying in lard and butter.

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 Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the chicken thoroughly and wipe it with a damp cloth.

  2. Roll each piece in flour.

  3. Heat lard and butter in a frying pan.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the chicken, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cover tightly.

  2. Cook until about half done, then uncover and turn each piece to brown on both sides.

  3. Serve with thickened gravy made from the pan fat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 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 main protein; a young, tender bird cooks through and eats tender.
Flour
Forms a coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and gives the crust its browning and richness.
Butter
Adds milk solids that brown and contribute a rich, nutty aroma to the crust.

The step that matters

Cover tightly, then uncover to brown. Covering traps steam so the chicken cooks through gently; uncovering in the last stage lets moisture escape so the flour coating can crisp and brown on both sides.

“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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