Name: Chicken Breasts with Creole Sauce
Ingredients: 6 chicken breasts skinned and boned; ¼ cup oil; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; ½ teaspoon paprika; ½ cup celery chopped; ½ cup green onions sliced; 1 clove garlic minced; ½ cup green pepper chopped; 2 tablespoons oil; 1 cup water; 16 ounce can tomatoes undrained; 6 ounce can tomato paste; 1 tablespoon sugar; 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce; ¼ teaspoon Tabasco sauce; ½ teaspoon ground cumin

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken breasts: Provide the main protein, which cooks through and becomes tender under broiling or grilling.
Tomatoes: Supply the liquid and body that form the base of the sauce.
Tomato paste: Thickens the sauce and deepens its concentrated tomato flavour.
Celery: Adds savoury aromatic flavour as it softens in the sauté.
Green pepper: Adds aromatic vegetable flavour and a little texture to the sauce.
Sugar: Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and rounds out the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Basting the chicken while it broils or grills. Brushing the oil and lemon mixture on repeatedly keeps the surface from drying out and helps it brown evenly. Chicken breast is lean, so it dries and toughens easily if left unbasted over direct heat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lemon, celery, onion, garlic, pepper, tomato):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Basilfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lemon, celery, onion, garlic, pepper, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Cumin	1 tsp ground (2.1g)	8
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Water	not in our table	0
Sauce	not in our table	0

Chicken Breasts with Creole Sauce