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Broiled Chickens or Quails

Broiled chickens or quails served with a sweet cream gravy made from boiled organs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Broiled Chickens or Quails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken open on the back and pound it until it lies flat.

  2. Place the chicken on a grill over a bed of coals and broil until nicely browned, about 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Cover the chicken with a pie tin held down with a weight to ensure even cooking.

Make the gravy

  1. While the chicken is broiling, boil the liver, gizzard, and heart in 1 pint of water until tender.

  2. Chop the boiled organs finely.

  3. Mix the chopped organs with flour, butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Stir in 1 cup of sweet cream into the water used for boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Once the chicken is done, dip it in the gravy while hot.

  2. Return the chicken to the grill for 1 minute.

  3. Place the chicken in the gravy.

  4. Let it boil for 30 seconds.

  5. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Chickens
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked to a browned, tender texture.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the chopped organ mixture so it binds into a gravy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the gravy.

The step that matters

Returning the chicken to the grill and boiling in gravy. Brief high heat sets the browned surface again after dipping, while the gravy is kept hot. Boiling only briefly keeps the cream from overcooking and separating, and keeps the gravy smooth.

“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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