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Devilled Bones

A seasoned chicken dish simmered in a butter, tomato catsup, Worcestershire, mustard, cayenne, and stock sauce, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Devilled Bones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut several small gashes in each piece of chicken.

  2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll the seasoned chicken in flour.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet.

  2. Add the tomato catsup, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and cayenne to the skillet.

  3. Cook the chicken in the seasoned butter until well browned.

  4. Add the chicken stock to the skillet.

  5. Simmer the chicken and sauce for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the chicken on a serving dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the chicken.

  3. Sprinkle the chicken with finely chopped 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour-coated chicken brown in the skillet.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and tang to the sauce.
Tomato catsup or chili sauce
Adds sweetness, acidity and body to the sauce.
Chicken stock
Provides liquid that thins the sauce and carries its flavour during simmering.
Flour
Coats the chicken so it browns well and the sauce thickens slightly.

The step that matters

Cook the chicken until well browned. Flour-coated chicken browns through the Maillard reaction in hot fat. Pale or under-browned pieces lack flavour, and the flour coating can scorch if the heat is too high.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, mustard, pepper, chicken, parsley, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, mustard, pepper, chicken, parsley, flour. 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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