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Broiled Chicken

A whole chicken roasted under a broiler, seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper, served hot with tartare sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Broiled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe the chicken and remove the head, neck, and feet.

  2. Split open the backbone and remove all inner parts.

  3. Wipe the inside and outside of the chicken clean.

  4. Spread the chicken open flat and turn back the tips of the wings.

Broil and serve

  1. Brush the skin with softened butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the chicken in a heated broiler, inner side down, about 12 inches above a low fire.

  3. Cook for 30 to 45 minutes until the breastbone is white.

  4. Turn the chicken to brown the skin side.

  5. Transfer to a warmed platter, baste with melted butter, and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

  6. Serve hot, with tartare sauce as an accompaniment.

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. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish; its meat cooks through while the skin browns under the broiler.
Softened butter
Coats the skin to add moisture and richness, and helps it brown evenly.

The step that matters

Turning the chicken to brown the skin side. Broiling from one side alone can leave the skin pale or the meat unevenly cooked. Turning exposes the skin to direct heat so it browns, while the meat finishes cooking through.

“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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