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Small Chickens, ‘a LA Marinade’

Small chickens marinated in lemon juice, coated in frying paste, and fried in hot fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,092 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Small Chickens, ‘a LA Marinade’

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the chickens and boil them in broth for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain and let them cool, then cut each into 5 pieces.

  3. Remove skin and bones as much as possible.

  4. Place the pieces in a bowl, season, and moisten with lemon juice.

Fry and serve

  1. Ten minutes before serving, dip each piece in frying-paste.

  2. Fry in hot fat until the paste is dry, then drain and serve on a folded napkin.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender from the gentle boiling before frying.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and moistens the chicken pieces.
Frying-paste
Forms a coating that dries and crisps in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying until the paste is dry. Frying in hot fat until the coating is fully dry drives off surface moisture, so the paste crisps rather than turning soggy or greasy. Pieces pulled too early stay wet and soft.

“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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