Name: Chicken, Minced
Ingredients: 1 whole fowl; coarse sea salt; white pepper; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; good rich chicken stock

Why it works: Lemon and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,092 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the fowl until cooked through.
Grind the meat until finely minced.

Season and pack

Season the minced meat with coarse sea salt, white pepper, and lemon juice.
Moisten the mixture with chicken stock.
Pack the meat tightly in a stone crock until ready to use.

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.

Lemon + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,092 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
White pepper + chickentop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl: Provides the main body of meat that is cooked, then minced into the dish.
Chicken stock: Adds moisture and savoury depth to the minced meat.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the meat.