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Le Poulet a LA Marengo

A fried chicken dish with croutons, mushrooms, chives, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,150 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Le Poulet a LA Marengo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces, separating each limb from the carcass.

  2. Heat enough oil in a skillet to fully cover the chicken pieces.

Fry and finish

  1. Cook the chicken thighs for five minutes before adding the other pieces.

  2. Once the chicken is three-quarters cooked, add croutons and medium-sized raw mushrooms to the oil.

  3. Cook for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the oil, reserving ½ cup for the sauce.

  5. Season the chicken.

  6. Add chives and parsley and sauté for a moment.

  7. Plate the chicken 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.

  1. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Mushroom + chivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and meat that cooks through in the hot oil.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and brown in the hot oil, adding savory depth.
Croutons of bread
Soak up cooking oil and crisp at the edges, adding texture.

The step that matters

Adding the other pieces after the thighs. The thighs need a head start of five minutes because they are denser and take longer to cook through. Adding all pieces at once can leave the breast or lighter pieces overcooked while the thighs stay underdone.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, mushroom, chive):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, mushroom, chive. 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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