Why it works: Chicken and tarragon work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 559 recipes mention both. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Brown and start the sauce
Fry the chicken pieces in lard until yellow.
Add the finely chopped onion and flour.
Simmer
When the onion starts to turn yellow, add 3-4 tablespoons of water, juice from 4-5 tomatoes, salt and tarragon. The quantity of tarragon is to taste.
Cover and simmer.
Finish in the oven
When the meat is almost done, set into the oven for 15-20 minutes.
You may prepare this with raw onion. In this case, add it with the water.
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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Chicken + tarragontop 7% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together559 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Chicken + tomatotop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together6,027 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,808 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Tomato + tarragontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together303 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Onion + tomatotop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together20,622 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Forms the main dish, and its fat and juices flavour the sauce.
- Lard
- Fat for frying that gives the chicken a golden surface and adds richness.
- Onion
- Softens and turns sweet as it cooks, adding base flavour to the sauce.
- Tomatoes
- Juice adds moisture and gentle acidity to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce.
- Tarragon
- Adds a distinct aniseed aroma to the sauce.
The step that matters
Brown the chicken until yellow. Frying the chicken in lard until well coloured builds flavour through browning. Pale, under-fried pieces give a flat, less savoury sauce once simmered.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, flour, tarragon):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Asparagusbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, flour, tarragon. 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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