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Roasted chicken served with a milk-based bread sauce and potato balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

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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.

Roast the chicken

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

  2. Add ½ pint of stock to a casserole, sprinkle the chicken with coarse sea salt, and cover with a lid.

  3. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, basting frequently with gravy.

  4. Once cooked, remove the chicken, discard strings and skewers, and keep warm.

  5. Remove excess fat from the gravy, return the chicken to the casserole, and heat for a few more minutes.

Make the bread sauce

  1. For the bread sauce, boil the onion in ½ pint of milk with a blade of mace and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

  2. Once boiling, remove from heat and let infuse for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the milk over 2 oz. of bread-crumbs in a bowl, cover, and let soak for another 15 minutes.

  4. In a saucepan, combine the soaked bread-crumbs with 1 oz. of butter and salt to taste, then bring to a boil.

Make and fry the potato balls

  1. For the potato balls, boil 1 lb. of potatoes until tender, then dry and mash them.

  2. Mix in 2 oz. of butter, 2 eggs, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Shape into balls, coat with white bread-crumbs, and fry in hot fat until golden.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main protein of the dish and browns in the oven as it roasts.
Bread-crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and thicken it into a smooth, spoonable bread sauce.
Potatoes
Bind the potato balls with starch and give them a soft, fluffy interior.
Eggs
Bind the mashed potato mixture so the balls hold their shape when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the bread sauce and potato balls a rounder flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the bread sauce, absorbing flavour from the onion and mace.

The step that matters

Frying the potato balls until golden. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the balls absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy inside.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, sauce, milk, onion, pepper, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, sauce, milk, onion, pepper, butter. 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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