Name: Prairie Chicken
Ingredients: 2 prairie chickens; a few slices of pork; 1 quart of water; browned flour; seasoning to taste; parsley for garnish

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Prairie Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Dress and stuff the chickens as for roasting.
Line the bottom of a kettle with slices of pork.

Steam and brown

Place the chickens in the kettle and add 1 quart of water.
Cover and steam for about 1 hour.
Remove the cover and let the chickens brown on all sides.

Make the gravy and serve

Transfer the chickens to a platter and garnish with parsley.
Remove the pork from the kettle; if too much fat remains, remove some.
Add water and thicken the remaining liquid with browned flour.
Season to taste and serve in a gravy 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.

Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,314 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pork + parsleytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,804 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,559 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 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

Prairie chickens: Provide the main meat, which cooks through during steaming and then browns.
Browned flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Pork: Adds fat and savory flavor to the liquid as it steams.