Why it works: Chicken and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Chicken and Ham
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Draw, wash, and stuff the chickens.
Wrap the ham slices around the chickens and secure with string.
Place in a dripping pan with a little water to prevent scorching.
Bake
Cover with a tin pail and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes, longer if the chickens are tough.
Baste with drippings frequently as cooking time progresses.
Check tenderness by inserting a fork through the ham into the chicken breast.
Serve
Once done, remove the strings and place the chickens on a hot platter with ham slices around them.
Pour browned gravy over the chickens and serve the rest in a gravy boat.
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.
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Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,497 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Young chickens
- Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered baking.
- Cold boiled ham
- Wraps the chickens, adding salty, savory flavor and moisture as it cooks.
- Drippings
- Baste the chickens, adding moisture and browned flavor to the surface.
The step that matters
Check tenderness through the ham. Inserting a fork into the breast shows whether the meat is cooked through. Tough birds need more time, so test before removing them from the oven.
“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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