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Poulet Roti a LA Franpaise

A roasted chicken seasoned with salt, covered with bacon, and cooked with carrot, onion, bay leaf, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Poulet Roti a LA Franpaise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Singe, draw, and truss the chicken for roasting.

  2. Season the chicken with salt.

  3. Cover the breast with a large slice of fat bacon.

  4. Arrange sliced carrot, onion, bay leaf, and a slice of bacon in a roasting pan.

  5. Place the chicken on the mirepoix and spread 2 tablespoons of butter over it.

Roast and serve

  1. Cook in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 45 to 60 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. When nearly done, remove the bacon from the breast to allow it to brown.

  3. Untruss the chicken, dish it up, and keep it hot.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Chicken + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,338 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven while its skin browns.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and promotes browning of the skin and drippings.
Fat bacon
Covers the breast to keep the lean meat moist and juicy during roasting.
Carrot and onion
Form the mirepoix base that flavors the pan drippings and lifts the bird off the pan.

The step that matters

Removing the bacon from the breast when nearly done. Leaving the bacon on too long prevents the breast skin from browning, while removing it too early leaves the breast dry. Timing it near the end lets the skin brown while the bacon has already protected the meat.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion. 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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