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Maryland Chicken with Corn Dodgers

A fried chicken dish served with cornmeal dough fritters called corn dodgers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Maryland Chicken with Corn Dodgers

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the chicken

  1. Clean and joint the chickens as for fricassee.

  2. Heat lard in a frying pan until boiling.

  3. Wipe the chicken pieces and drop them into the boiling lard.

  4. Fry until well browned and cooked through, about 15 to 25 minutes.

  5. Remove cooked chicken to a hot dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour off excess lard, leaving any chicken gravy in the pan.

  2. Add ½ cup cream to the pan and sprinkle in a little flour.

  3. Stir and bring to a boil, then let it boil for 3 minutes.

  4. Season with pepper and salt, then pour over the chicken.

  5. Garnish with finely chopped parsley.

Make the corn dodgers and serve

  1. Cut the cold cornmeal mush into ½ inch thick slices and then into diamond shapes.

  2. Dip the pieces lightly in egg, cover with flour, and fry in butter.

  3. Garnish the edge of the platter with corn dodgers and serve.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young chickens
Provides the meat, which browns in hot fat and firms as it cooks through.
Lard
Hot fat that browns the chicken's surface and carries flavor into the crust.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the pan gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cream gravy and helps the coated pieces brown.
Cold cornmeal mush
Firms when chilled, so it holds its shape for slicing and frying.

The step that matters

Frying the chicken until cooked through. Pieces brown quickly in boiling lard, so the surface can look done before the thick joints are cooked inside. Frying long enough to cook through keeps the meat safe and tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, pepper, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, pepper, 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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