Name: Jellied Chicken
Ingredients: chicken; gelatin; hard-boiled eggs; fresh parsley; red currant jelly; salt; pepper

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Jellied Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken until tender and chop it finely.
Prepare gelatin according to package instructions.
Layer some gelatin in a mold and let it partially set.
Arrange slices of hard-boiled egg on the gelatin.
Add the chopped chicken and cover with more gelatin.
Chill until fully set.
Garnish with fresh parsley and dollops of red currant jelly before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Red currant + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together267 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Parsley + red curranttop 13% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together96 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together6,314 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, gelatin, egg, parsley, pepper):

Lemonbetter flavor fit
Limebetter flavor fit
Mangobetter flavor fit
Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, gelatin, egg, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).