Name: EscALLOPED Chicken
Ingredients: 1 good-sized chicken; boiled rice; ½ cup butter; 2 eggs; salt to taste; 1 pint oysters; juice of ½ lemon; parsley to taste; stewed prunes for garnish

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

EscALLOPED Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the chicken until tender and remove the large bones.
Line a deep dish with boiled rice, then add a layer of chicken, followed by another layer of rice.
Pour the chicken broth over the layers.
Mix in the butter, salt, and beaten eggs.
In a separate pot, cook the oysters with lemon juice and parsley until they swell.
Add the beaten egg yolks to the oyster mixture.
Place the chicken in a deep dish and pour the oyster broth over it.
Garnish the edges with steamed rice and dot with stewed prunes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,762 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,366 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).