Name: A Yellow Fricassee
Ingredients: 1 gill of cream; a slice of lean bacon; a teaspoon of lemon juice; 1/2 onion; 3 cloves; 1/2 teacup of water; 2 eggs; 1 teacup; two tin tubes 3; 2 hard wood polished sticks right size to slip easily through tubes; butter the size of an egg; salt; pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. 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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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

Eggs: Egg yolks thicken the cream into a custard-like gravy as they set with gentle heat.
Cream: Adds richness and fat, giving the gravy a smooth, silky texture.
Butter: Adds fat and flavour to the chicken as it cooks in the saucepan.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy. Egg yolks set when heated, so they must be added to the cream and stirred well without boiling. Overheating can curdle the custard and leave it grainy rather than smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, lemon, clove, egg, butter, pepper):

Spinachfits better
Leekfits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, lemon, clove, egg, butter, pepper. 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
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bacon	1 slice cooked (8g)	43
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0
Wood	not in our table	0

A Yellow Fricassee