Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fried Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Clean and wash the chicken without cutting it up.
Rub salt over the chicken.
Cook
Fry the chicken in butter in an open pan until light brown on both sides.
Add a little water, cover, and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven.
Baste every 10 minutes with the gravy.
Finish the gravy
When done, remove the chicken from the gravy.
Thicken the gravy with a little flour and boil for a few minutes.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,559 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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
- The main protein, browned in the pan and cooked through gently in the oven.
- Butter
- Fat that helps the chicken brown and adds rich flavor.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy as it boils.
The step that matters
Cover with water and baste in the oven. Adding a little water and covering the pan creates steam that cooks the chicken gently. Basting regularly spoons the gravy and its fat back over the meat, which helps keep it moist and stops the surface from drying out.
“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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