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Fowl, Fried, with Peas

A dish of fried chicken pieces served with peas in a butter and stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Fowl, Fried, with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Divide the fowl into pieces convenient for serving.

  2. Boil the bones and trimmings to make stock.

Brown and make the sauce

  1. Fry the fowl in hot butter until well browned.

  2. Remove the fowl and keep it warm.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the fowl and brown the flour slightly.

  4. Add the stock to the pan and stir until the mixture boils.

  5. Season to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Replace the fowl in the pan.

  2. Cover the pan closely and keep the dish hot without further cooking.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  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).

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

Cold roast fowl
Provides the cooked meat that is browned and served in the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the fowl and carries flavour.
Flour
Browned with the fat and thickens the stock into a sauce.
Stock
Liquid made from the bones that becomes the sauce.
Shelled peas
Adds sweetness and colour as the vegetable in the dish.

The step that matters

Browning the flour slightly. Flour cooked briefly in the fat loses its raw starchy taste and gives the sauce a nutty colour before the stock is added. Cooking it too long can scorch it, and adding stock too soon leaves lumps.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper. 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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