Why it works: Onion and garlic 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 ↓
Pollo Arvejado
Ingredients
Directions
Brown the chicken
Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.
Add the chicken, in batches, and cook until golden brown all over, about 7 minutes.
Remove the chicken to a platter, and season with salt and black pepper.
Discard all but 2 tablespoons fat from the Dutch oven.
Build the braise
Add the onion, garlic, bell pepper, carrot, and paprika; cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat until softened but not browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Season with oregano, salt, and black pepper.
Add the water, wine, and tomato paste; bring to a boil, stirring and scraping all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
Arrange the chicken over the vegetables, cover partially, and simmer 30 minutes.
Add the peas and serve
Add the peas, and simmer uncovered until the chicken is very tender, 20 to 30 minutes more.
Taste for seasoning.
Sprinkle with fresh parsley just before serving.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
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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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + oreganotop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together3,756 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Clove + oreganotop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together556 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Carrot + oreganotop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together536 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Browning builds flavour on the skin, and slow simmering turns the meat tender.
- Onion
- Softened onion adds sweetness and body to the braising liquid.
- Garlic
- Cooked garlic adds a mellow, aromatic savoury base.
- Tomato paste
- Concentrated tomato adds depth, colour and a little acidity to the sauce.
- Green peas
- Peas add sweetness and bright colour, and they cook gently in the sauce.
- White wine or chicken broth
- The liquid carries flavour and helps lift browned bits from the pan into the sauce.
The step that matters
Brown the chicken in batches. Crowding the pan traps steam and stops the skin from browning. Browning in batches creates the Maillard flavour that the braising sauce builds on.
Flavor stand-ins for the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, onion, garlic, carrot, oregano, white wine):
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Cuminbetter flavor fit
- Marjorambetter flavor fit
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, onion, garlic, carrot, oregano, white wine. 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).
“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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