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Grilled Chicken

A whole chicken grilled with oil, pepper, salt, lemon, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Grilled Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the chicken down the back and flatten it out without breaking the bones.

  2. Place it on a dish and pour salad oil over it, allowing it to drain.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Grill and serve

  1. Place the chicken on a grill over a clear fire.

  2. Cook for 30 minutes, turning occasionally.

  3. Serve with lemon wedges and chopped fresh parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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 protein, which cooks through and browns on the grill.
Salad oil
Adds moisture and helps the skin brown and resist sticking on the grill.

The step that matters

Cook for 30 minutes, turning occasionally. Turning helps the chicken cook evenly and keeps the skin from scorching over direct heat. Flattening the bird earlier gives even thickness, so it cooks through without the outside burning before the center is done.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, lemon. 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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