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Fried Chicken

A whole chicken fried in butter and lard after being seasoned and dredged in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Fried Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the chicken thoroughly.

  2. Cut the chicken open in the back with a sharp knife.

  3. Dredge the chicken with flour, pepper, and salt.

Fry

  1. Heat equal amounts of butter and lard in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Add the chicken to the pan and cover it until browned on both sides.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the chicken brown and crisp in the fat.
Butter
Adds flavor and helps the chicken brown in the pan.
Lard
Fat that conducts heat well and crisps the coating during frying.

The step that matters

Add the chicken to the pan and cover it until browned on both sides. The fat must be hot enough before the chicken goes in, or the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy instead of browning. Covering traps steam, which can soften the crust, so the cook must watch the heat and browning closely.

“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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