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Chicken a LA Marengo

Chicken a la Marengo is a braised chicken dish with mushrooms, herbs, and a sauce of flour, stock, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 a LA Marengo

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the chicken

  1. Heat oil in a pan.

  2. Fry the chickens with herbs and garlic until brown.

  3. Remove the chickens.

  4. Place them in a sautoir.

  5. Fry the mushrooms in the same oil.

  6. Add the mushrooms to the chickens.

  7. Pour off excess oil.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. Add flour to the pan and stir.

  2. Moisten the flour with chicken stock and Madeira wine.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Skim the sauce.

  5. Strain the sauce over the chickens.

  6. Simmer the chickens until tender.

  7. Serve garnished with mushrooms.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Young chickens
Provide the main protein, which browns and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Oil
Conducts heat for browning the chicken and mushrooms and carries their flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce once moistened and boiled.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and savoury flavour.
Madeira wine
Adds aromatic depth and a touch of sweetness to the sauce.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture, and brown in the oil for extra savour.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken. Frying until deeply brown develops flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale chicken yields a flat-tasting sauce, so colour the pieces well before adding liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, garlic, mushroom, flour, madeira wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, garlic, mushroom, flour, madeira wine. 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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