Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Fricassee From Cold Boiled Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Cut up the chicken and simmer it in the gravy made from the boiling water, along with the neck, feet, liver, heart, and gizzard.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Remove the chicken and keep it hot.
Strain the gravy and return it to the saucepan.
Add more salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and butter rolled in flour.
Bring to a boil, then add cream and stir without boiling again.
Pour the gravy over the chicken and serve hot.
Garnish with thin slices of lemon.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, cream):
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
- Limefits less well
- Avocadofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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