Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓
Chicken Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Mix chicken with salt, pepper, onion juice, and chopped mushrooms.
Heat cream in a large frying pan.
Beat flour and butter together until smooth; stir into boiling cream.
Add seasoned chicken and cook for 3 minutes.
Beat 2 eggs until light and stir into the mixture; remove from heat and cool for 1 hour.
Butter a cutlet mold and sprinkle with breadcrumbs; pack with chicken mixture.
Tap the mold to release the cutlet.
Beat remaining 2 eggs and place breadcrumbs in another plate; dip cutlets in eggs, then breadcrumbs.
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.
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Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,172 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,626 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 onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, butter, flour, mushroom, egg, pepper):
- Spinachfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Potatofits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, butter, flour, mushroom, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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