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Roast Chicken

A whole chicken roasted with butter, salt, pepper, and baking soda, served with a giblet gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Roast Chicken

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

  1. Wash the chicken well in two or three waters.

  2. Add baking soda to the second-to-last wash to ensure freshness.

  3. Dry the chicken with a clean cloth.

  4. Fill the cavity with stuffing.

  5. Place the chicken in a roasting pan with hot water and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  6. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Roast

  1. Baste the chicken frequently while roasting at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Add the remaining butter to the pan and baste again.

  3. Dredge a little flour over the chicken and baste once more.

  4. Finish roasting the chicken.

  5. Cook for about 30 minutes, depending on the heat of the fire.

Make the gravy

  1. Simmer the giblets in a small amount of water.

  2. Strain the giblets.

  3. Mix the strained giblets with the drippings from the chicken.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Add chopped giblets to the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve the chicken with the gravy and cranberry sauce or tart sauce.

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 + flourtop 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. Chicken + livertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together383 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  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

Whole chicken
The main protein, which roasting cooks through to tender meat.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the skin brown while roasting.
Flour
Browned and mixed into the drippings, it thickens the gravy.
Giblets
Simmered and added to the gravy, they give it a deeper meaty flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with browned flour. Flour must be cooked in the drippings and stirred in gradually. Its starch swells when heated, so adding it all at once or without enough stirring leaves lumps and a thin, floury taste.

“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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