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Menu for a Party of Eight

Breaded chicken pieces served with a sherry and red currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Menu for a Party of Eight

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Remove the weight from the cold chicken and cut it into eight pieces.

  2. Brush each piece with egg and coat with bread crumbs that have been crisped in the oven.

  3. Let the pieces sit for an hour and repeat the breading process.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the breaded chicken pieces in boiling fat until golden yellow, then drain them.

  2. Arrange the fried chicken around a ring of spinach, garnished with chopped hard boiled eggs and fried parsley.

Make the gravy

  1. Skim the fat from the cold gravy and melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in flour when the butter is melted, then gradually add the gravy and stir until thickened.

  3. Add caramel coloring, sherry, and red currant jelly to the sauce, and serve it alongside 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which is cut into pieces and fried until golden.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the chicken so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the gravy and carries the flour for thickening.
Flour
Thickens the butter and gravy mixture into a smooth sauce.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang to balance the gravy.

The step that matters

Repeat the breading after resting. A second coat of egg and crumbs after the pieces rest builds a thicker, more even crust that is less likely to fall off during frying.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, bread, butter, flour, sherry, mushroom):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, bread, butter, flour, sherry, mushroom. 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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