Name: Spicy Chicken Stew
Ingredients: 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs , cut into 1 ½- inch cubes; Flour; ¼ cup canola oil; 1 large onion , finely diced; ¼ cup red curry paste; 5 Thai chiles , stemmed; 3 tbsp fish sauce; 1 cup chicken broth; ½ cup tomato paste; 4 red potatoes , cut into 2-inch cubes; 1 tbsp minced garlic; Chopped parsley

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).
Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,517 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 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 thighs: Browned skin-free meat that becomes tender during long, slow braising.
Red curry paste: Supplies the core aromatic and spicy flavour of the stew.
Tomato paste: Adds concentrated savory depth and body to the braising liquid.
Red potatoes: Hold their shape through long cooking and thicken the stew through their starch.
Fish sauce: Adds salty, savory depth that rounds out the curry flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken in batches. Crowding the pot lowers its temperature so chicken steams instead of browning. Browning builds deep flavour through the Maillard reaction, which the long braise then carries into the sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, canola oil, onion, fish sauce, potato, garlic):

Chivefits better
Broccolifits about as well
Shallotfits about as well
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, canola oil, onion, fish sauce, potato, garlic. 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
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1

Spicy Chicken Stew