Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Fricassee De Poulet, Sauce Tomate
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Singe, draw, and clean the chicken; cut it into joints for fricassee.
Cook
Place the chicken in a stewpan and half cover with boiling water; simmer.
Add the rice and salt; boil gently until the chicken is tender, about 1 to 1.5 hours.
Serve
Arrange the chicken in the center of a dish with the rice around it.
Pour the rich Tomato Sauce over the chicken.
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 + ricetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,769 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,065 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,031 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,469 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,396 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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 body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
- Washed rice
- Absorbs cooking liquid and softens, forming a starchy side that thickens the pot.
The step that matters
Simmering the chicken gently until tender. Boiling vigorously toughens muscle proteins and can break the joints apart. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue soften slowly, keeping the meat tender and moist.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, sauce):
- Tomatothe original
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Asparagusfits less well
- Potatofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, sauce. 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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