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Fried Chicken

Whole chickens seasoned with salt and pepper, dredged in flour, and fried in fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

  1. Disjoint the chickens and wash them carefully.

  2. Refrigerate the chickens overnight.

Coat and fry

  1. Drain the chicken without wiping it dry. Season with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour.

  2. Heat deep fat until it can brown a crumb of bread in 60 seconds. Fry the chicken for 10 to 12 minutes.

  3. Drain on paper and keep warm in the oven until ready to serve.

Steam and brown

  1. Drain the chicken without wiping it dry. Season with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour.

  2. Heat 3 tablespoons of fat in a frying pan. When hot, add the chicken, cover, and steam for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the cover and allow the chicken to brown, turning frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve on a platter garnished with parsley.

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

Chickens
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as the outside browns.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Fat for frying
Conducts heat to brown and crisp the coating and cook the chicken.

The step that matters

Testing the frying fat temperature. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy; if it is too hot, the crust darkens before the chicken cooks through. The bread-crumb test helps gauge the right heat.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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