Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Stewed Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Singe the chicken and cut it into pieces.
Wash the chicken and place it in a stewpan with boiling water.
When the water boils, skim it and reduce heat to a gentle simmer.
In a small pan, cook the onion and butter gently for 20 minutes.
Remove the onions and add them to the chicken.
Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with the remaining butter until smooth and frothy, then add to the stew.
Mix the remaining flour with ½ cup cold water and stir into the stew.
Add salt and pepper, and cook gently for 3 hours.
After 3 hours, move the stewpan to a hotter part of the stove, add dumplings, and cook for an additional 10 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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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, pepper, flour):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatofits better
- Leekfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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