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Poulet Aux Olives

A roasted chicken flavored with spiced pepper, garlic, breadcrumbs, glaze, lemon juice, red currant jelly, stock, and olives, served with potatoes or spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Poulet Aux Olives

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Dust the chicken lightly with spiced pepper and set it aside on a plate.

  2. In a large bag, combine butter or oil, notched garlic, breadcrumbs, and the chicken.

  3. Place the bag in a 400°F (200°C) oven and cook for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the chicken to a hot dish and drain it carefully.

  2. Pour off grease from the breadcrumbs and remove the garlic.

  3. In a clean bag, mix the remaining gravy with glaze, lemon juice, red currant jelly, and stock, then fold the bag.

  4. Heat it until very hot, then open the bag.

  5. Add the stuffed olives and heat for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the chicken.

  2. Garnish with straw potatoes or spinach.

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. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and the meat that is cooked and served in the dish.
Butter or oil
Carries fat that moistens the chicken and helps it brown in the oven.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the cooking fat and add a light crisp texture to the bird.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce, balancing the savoury gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts the richness of the fat.
Stuffed olives
Add a salty, briny flavour that contrasts with the sweet jelly and rich sauce.

The step that matters

Pour off grease from the breadcrumbs. Fat left in the breadcrumbs would make the sauce greasy and heavy, so the fat must be removed before the sauce is built.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, butter, clove, garlic, lemon, olive):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter, clove, garlic, lemon, olive. 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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