Name: Corn Meal Balls for Chicken
Ingredients: one cup white meal scalded; one tablespoon sugar; quarter cup flour; four tablespoonfuls of sweet oil; two tablespoons of butter; quarter pound salt pork; three cups of stale bread crumbs; one cup of chopped suet; one tablespoonful of chopped parsley; a pint of milk 40 landmarks club cook book; a pinch of thyme; two eggs; one rooster; two wine glasses of white wine; three fresh tomatos; one boiled fowl cut into dice; one pint; two chickens into pieces; four potatos; 40 landmarks club cook book; quarter lemon peel; salt; pepper; parsley; lemon peel; thyme

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. 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.

Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Pork + thymetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

White meal: Forms the body of the batter, with the scalding softening its starch for a tender ball.
Eggs: Bind the batter so the balls hold their shape in the hot fat.
Flour: Adds body to the batter and helps the balls hold together while frying.
Milk: Thins the mixture to a dropping consistency, adding moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Drop the mixture into deep hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the balls absorb oil and turn greasy and may fall apart. Hot fat sets the outside quickly so the balls keep their shape and brown evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, pork, bread, milk, thyme):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Marjoramfits better
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, pork, bread, milk, thyme. 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
Pork	100g cooked	242
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Corn Meal Balls for Chicken