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Chicken Paprika

A stew of whole chicken seasoned with paprika, simmered with onion and stock, thickened with flour and finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Paprika

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and disjoint the chicken, leaving the breast whole.

  2. Season the chicken with coarse sea salt and liberally dust with paprika. Let it marinate overnight if possible.

Stew

  1. In a kettle, heat the fat until very hot. Add the chopped onion.

  2. Place the chicken in the kettle and let it simmer. Shake it occasionally and let it stew slowly.

  3. Add a little stock from time to time.

Finish the gravy

  1. When the chicken is done, add a little flour to thicken the gravy.

  2. Add the chopped parsley and let it boil with the gravy.

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.

  1. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish and releases juices that flavour the stewing liquid.
Paprika
Gives the dish its characteristic colour and sweet, earthy aroma.
Onion
Softens as it cooks, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the gravy. Flour must be stirred into the hot liquid to avoid lumps; it thickens as it heats and boils, so adding it too late leaves the gravy thin.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, flour. 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.

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