Name: Chicken Chartreuse
Ingredients: finely chopped cooked chicken (or any meat); cream sauce or poulette sauce or leftover sauce from the meats; hot cooked rice; butter

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Chartreuse

Ingredients

finely chopped cooked chicken (or any meat)
cream sauce or poulette sauce or leftover sauce from the meats
hot cooked rice
butter

Directions

Mix the finely chopped cooked chicken with the cream sauce or leftover sauce.
Line a well-buttered mold with hot cooked rice, about 1 inch thick.
Fill the mold with the chicken mixture.
Cover with more rice if desired.
Chill until set, then unmold and serve.

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.

Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cream + ricetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,399 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).