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
Prepare the chicken
Singe the chicken.
Cut the chicken into pieces.
Wash the chicken pieces.
Place the chicken in a stewpan with boiling water.
When the water boils, skim carefully.
Make the stew
Reduce the 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.
Add 1½ tablespoons of flour to the remaining butter and cook until smooth.
Stir this mixture into the stew.
Mix the remaining flour with ½ cup cold water.
Stir the flour and water mixture into the stew.
Add salt and pepper.
Cook and finish
Cook gently for 3 hours.
After 3 hours, move the stewpan to a hotter part of the stove.
Add dumplings.
Cook for 10 more 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
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the main meat and flavor that the stew is built around.
- Flour
- Thickens the stewing liquid as it cooks, giving the sauce body.
- Butter
- Carries the onion flavor and enriches the flour mixture for a smooth thickener.
- Onion
- Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it cooks gently in butter.
The step that matters
Adding the flour mixture to the stew. Flour must be cooked smooth in butter before it goes into the liquid, and the liquid should be gently simmering while stirred. Otherwise lumps form and the sauce thickens unevenly.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatofits better
- Leekfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, pepper. 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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