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Poulet a LA Diable

Poulet à la Diable is a boiled chicken served with a mustard, Worcestershire, and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,067 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken in salted water until tender.

  2. Let the chicken cool, then cut it into even pieces.

Broil and serve

  1. Dip the chicken pieces in melted butter and broil them.

  2. In a saucepan, combine mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and vinegar; bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the sauce over the broiled 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mustard + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Mustard + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,869 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + saucetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together15,317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Mustard and vinegar share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the main protein; boiling first makes it tender before broiling.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the chicken brown under the broiler.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that gives the sauce its characteristic bite.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and tang to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, sauce, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Onionabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, sauce, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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