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Broiled Chicken on Toast

A whole chicken is broiled and served over buttered toast with a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Chicken on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Broil the chicken until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the chicken and place it in a square baking dish or dripping pan.

  3. Butter the chicken well and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Return the chicken to the oven for a few minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Moisten and butter the bread slices, then lay them on a platter.

  2. In the pan with the chicken, add the cream or milk.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour and pour it over the chicken.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which cooks through under the broiler and becomes the dish's centerpiece.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the chicken brown and stay moist during final cooking.
Bread
Forms the base that holds the chicken and absorbs the sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, forming the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream or milk into a sauce that clings to the chicken.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour. Flour must be stirred in well so it hydrates and swells evenly; added lumpy or without enough heat-cooking, it leaves a raw floury taste and uneven body in the sauce.

“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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