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Devilled Bones

A seasoned chicken dish with a tomato-based sauce, simmered in stock and finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

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

  2. Season chicken with salt and pepper, then roll in flour.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. Melt butter in a pan, then add tomato catsup, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

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

  3. Add chicken stock and simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange chicken on a serving dish, pour sauce over it, and sprinkle with 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 chicken brown in the pan.
Tomato catsup or chili sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and tang to the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness of the sauce.
Flour
Coats the chicken so it browns and helps thicken the sauce.
Chicken stock
Adds liquid to the sauce and carries its flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the chicken in the seasoned butter until well browned. Flour-coated chicken browns through Maillard reactions, which build color and savory flavor. Pale chicken tastes flat, so the surface needs enough time and heat to brown before the stock is added.

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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