Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Chicken, Roasted
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Clean the chicken and pat it dry.
Rub the chicken inside and out with coarse sea salt and pepper.
Place the chicken in a roasting pan and dot with butter.
Roast and rest
Roast in the oven for about 1.5 hours, or until the juices run clear.
Let it rest for 10 minutes before carving.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 body of the dish, cooking through to tender meat.
- Butter
- Adds fat and moisture to the skin, helping it brown and stay rich.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture for a flavorful surface.
The step that matters
Roast until the juices run clear. Chicken must reach a fully cooked temperature for safety. Judging by juice colour alone is approximate, so the thickest parts should be checked for doneness before carving.
“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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