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Cornish Hens with Oranges & Onions

Poultry has an affinity for fruity flavors, as shown in this simple recipe for small Cornish hens. It’s a great, easy dish to serve to company because the individual hens make an elegant presentation.

By williamssonoma · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Cornish Hens with Oranges & Onions

Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,058 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Cornish Hens with Oranges & Onions

Serves 6.

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By williamssonoma. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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.

  1. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, garlic, olive, pepper, onion):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  3. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, garlic, olive, pepper, onion. 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).