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Steamed Chicken

A whole chicken baked with potatoes, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and optional bread crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Steamed Chicken

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Steamed Chicken

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.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the chicken and potatoes, cutting the potatoes into slices.

Layer and cover

  1. Layer the chicken and potatoes in a stone crock, seasoning each layer with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a little butter.

  2. Top with a crust or slices of bread if desired.

  3. Add enough water to cover the entire mixture.

Bake

  1. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for three hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful during the long, moist cooking.
Potatoes
Absorb cooking liquid and juices, becoming soft and starchy as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and keeps the layers moist as they cook.
Bread slices
Soak up cooking juices and add body to the topping layer.

The step that matters

Cover the mixture fully with water. Enough liquid keeps the chicken and potatoes from drying out during the three-hour bake, and it creates a moist, gently simmering environment that cooks the meat through evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

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