Skip to main content
Main

To Broil Prairie Chicken

A whole prairie chicken is seasoned, broiled, and served with melted butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Broil Prairie Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pepper the chicken and rub it with a little butter.

  2. Prepare a hot fire and broil the chicken on one side for a few minutes.

  3. Turn the chicken and broil the other side.

Finish and serve

  1. In a pan, melt more butter and add salt and pepper.

  2. Press the chicken in the butter mixture, then broil until fully cooked.

  3. Place the chicken on a hot dish and pour the melted butter over it.

  4. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and serve immediately.

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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Prairie chicken
Provides the lean meat that is cooked through by broiling.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and carries flavor into the meat during basting.

The step that matters

Press the chicken in the butter mixture, then broil until fully cooked. Pressing the meat into the seasoned butter coats it and helps it absorb fat and flavor. Broiling until fully cooked matters because lean game birds dry out quickly and the meat must reach a safe internal temperature.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes