Name: Potted Chicken
Ingredients: 2 or more tender chickens; water (enough to cover the chickens); pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; butter (for greasing the moulds)

Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Potted Chicken

Ingredients

2 or more tender chickens
water (enough to cover the chickens)
pepper to taste
coarse sea salt to taste
butter (for greasing the moulds)

Directions

Cut up the chickens.
Place them in a pot and cover with water.
Add pepper and salt to taste.
Boil until tender, then remove the bones.
Return the bones to the pot with the liquid and boil until all the juice is extracted.
Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot with the chicken, cut into small pieces.
Boil for a few minutes and then place in buttered moulds.

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.

Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).