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Fried Chicken

Fried chicken served with a cream and mace sauce.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Clean the chickens thoroughly and dry them well.

  2. Season the chickens with pepper and coarse sea salt, then dredge them in flour.

Fry

  1. Fry the chickens in lard until richly browned on both sides.

  2. Remove the chickens and keep them warm near the fire.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Skim the frying gravy, then mix in the cream and season with mace, pepper, salt, and parsley.

  2. Pour the sauce over the chickens and serve hot.

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. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the chicken brown and crisp when fried.
Lard
Fat that conducts heat for frying and gives the skin its rich browning.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the pan gravy, softening its flavour and texture.
Young chickens
Main protein; their tender meat cooks through during frying.

The step that matters

Fry until richly browned on both sides. Frying at a steady heat browns the flour coating and drives the Maillard reaction that creates flavour and colour. Too low a heat leaves the coating pale and greasy, while too high a heat can scorch it before the meat is cooked through.

Swap the mace

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

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

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