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Roast Chicken

Roast chicken stuffed with bread crumbs and served with a giblet gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,258 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Roast Chicken

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper.

  3. Prepare a dressing by mixing the bread or cracker crumbs.

  4. Fill the body and crop of the chicken with the dressing.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Roast the chicken for 1 to 2 hours, basting frequently.

  2. In a saucepan, stew the giblets until cooked.

  3. Chop the giblets finely just before serving.

  4. After removing the chicken, add the giblets to the gravy.

  5. Thicken the gravy with a little flour mixed with water and boil.

  6. Serve the gravy in a dish 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 + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  2. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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

Whole chicken
Provides the main meat, which cooks through during roasting.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Form the dressing that fills the cavity, adding soft bulk and absorbing juices.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated with liquid.
Giblets
Add savoury flavour to the gravy after being stewed and chopped.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour and water. Flour must be mixed with water before adding so it disperses without lumps, then boiled so its starch swells and thickens the gravy fully.

“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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