Name: Stewed Fowl with Rice
Ingredients: 1 fowl, trussed for boiling; 1 quart mutton broth; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ blade of mace; 1 large cup rice; Parsley, for garnish; Butter sauce, for serving

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Fowl with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the fowl

In a pot, stew the fowl in mutton broth seasoned with pepper, salt, and mace for 1.5 hours, skimming often.
About 30 minutes before serving, add the rice to the pot.

Prepare the rice

Once the rice is tender, strain the broth and place the rice on a sieve to dry and swell by the fire.

Plate and serve

Keep the fowl hot, then place it in the center of a hot dish with the rice arranged in a high border around it.
Serve with parsley and butter sauce in a tureen.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,762 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,268 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they 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

Fowl: Provides the main cooked meat, which becomes tender and flavours the broth as it stews.
Mutton broth: Cooks the fowl gently and carries the seasoning, adding savoury flavour and moisture.
Rice: Absorbs the broth and swells as it cooks, giving a soft, moist starch for the border.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, rice, parsley, butter, sauce):

Capersfits better
Thymefits better
Celeryfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, rice, parsley, butter, 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.