Name: Fricasseed Chicken
Ingredients: 2 ounces of butter; 1 pint of cold water; 1 cup of cream; 1 teaspoon of mace; 2 teaspoons of salt; ⅓ teaspoon of cayenne pepper; ⅓ teaspoon of grated nutmeg; 1 onion; yolks of 4 eggs

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the chickens and sprinkle the pieces with salt, pepper, and spices.
Put the water in a kettle and lay the chicken skin side down.
Slice the onion over the chicken, cover closely, and simmer until done.
Remove the chicken and keep it hot on a platter.
Rub the butter and flour together, adding a little gravy to soften it.
Stir the butter and flour mixture into the gravy and boil for 2-3 minutes.
Pour in the cream and, once it boils, pour it over the beaten yolks.
Return the mixture to the saucepan and heat thoroughly without boiling.
Pour the sauce over the chicken.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 (butter, cream, mace, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, mace, pepper, nutmeg, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.