Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,808 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
The recipe
1 loafIngredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Have a 9x5-inch loaf pan ready.
Drain the tuna well. Crush the saltine crackers and crumble the bread into fine crumbs.
In a large bowl, combine the tuna, cracker crumbs, bread crumbs and chopped onion.
Add the condensed cream of chicken soup, half the can of milk, the egg and black pepper to taste. Stir until evenly mixed.
Press the mixture firmly into the loaf pan and smooth the top.
Bake for 25 minutes, until the top is set and the center reaches 160°F (71°C).
Let the loaf rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
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.
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Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,808 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Milk + breadtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together11,363 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Chicken + milktop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,387 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Bread + eggtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together22,584 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Chicken + breadtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,258 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, chicken, milk, bread, egg, pepper):
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Asparagusbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, chicken, milk, bread, egg, 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).
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