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Broiled Chicken on Toast

A broiled chicken served atop toasted bread with a cream gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Broil the chicken until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the chicken to a square tin or dripping pan.

  3. Butter the pan well.

  4. Season the chicken with coarse sea salt and pepper.

  5. Place the chicken in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Moisten the bread slices.

  2. Lay the bread slices on a platter.

  3. Place the chicken on top of the toast.

  4. Add ½ cup of cream or milk to the gravy in the pan.

  5. Thicken the gravy with 1 tablespoon of flour.

  6. Pour the gravy 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 firms and sets as it cooks through.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the pan surface brown and release the chicken.
Bread
Forms the base, soaking up moisture from the chicken and gravy.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and body to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid as it heats.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour. Flour must be cooked in the hot pan juices and liquid so starch granules swell and thicken evenly; adding it raw or unmixed causes lumps and a floury taste.

“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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