Name: To Broil Chicken
Ingredients: young chickens; pepper; coarse sea salt; flour; breakfast bacon; butter; toast; mushrooms; parsley

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Broil Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Split the chickens down the back.
Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Dredge with flour.
Place a piece of breakfast bacon under each wing.
Add butter to the broiler or pan and lay the chicken on it.
Broil in the oven, turning several times until all parts are browned.
Serve on toast, garnished with sautéed mushrooms and parsley.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,172 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, butter, mushroom):

Thymefits better
Garlicfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, butter, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.