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Fried Chicken with Cream Gravy

Fried chicken served with a cream gravy.

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 ↓

Fried Chicken with Cream Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the chicken

  1. Heat lard or butter in a skillet over high heat.

  2. Season chicken with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Fry chicken until golden brown.

  4. Add parsley to the skillet and fry briefly.

  5. Remove chicken and parsley; pour off excess fat.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In the same pan, add heavy cream, season with salt, pepper, and mace.

  2. Thicken gravy with flour, stirring until smooth.

  3. Serve gravy over the fried 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 in hot fat while its surface browns.
Heavy cream
Forms the base of the gravy, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream gravy as its starch swells when stirred with the liquid.
Lard or butter
Serves as the frying fat, conducting heat and browning the chicken's surface.

The step that matters

Thicken gravy with flour, stirring until smooth. Flour must be stirred in evenly so its starch disperses and swells into the cream; added in clumps, it stays lumpy and the gravy thickens unevenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

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