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Baked Spring Chickens

Baked pieces of spring chicken with a creamy gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Spring Chickens

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 the chicken

  1. Wash the chicken pieces thoroughly and drain in a colander.

Bake

  1. In a dripping pan, heat the lard and butter, then add the chicken pieces and hot water.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes, turning to achieve a light brown color.

  3. Just before removing from the oven, season with salt and pepper.

Make the gravy

  1. For the gravy, add ½ pint of water to the dripping pan on the stove.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with ½ cup of cream or milk, stirring slowly and adding gradually to the pan.

  3. Cook thoroughly, stirring constantly to prevent burning, until the gravy is smooth.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein; turning it during baking browns the outside and cooks the meat through.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and body to the gravy, softening its flavor.
Lard and butter
Fat for the dripping pan that helps the chicken brown and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the pan. Flour lumps form if it is added without slow stirring. Cooking while stirring constantly keeps the starch dispersed and prevents the gravy from scorching on the pan bottom.

“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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