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Chicken Brais6, with New Carrots

A braised chicken served with carrots in a seasoned gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken Brais6, with New Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the chicken

  1. Remove the skin from the chicken and discard it.

  2. Fry the minced onion until brown in a pan.

  3. Add the gravy and the chicken, tossing for a few moments.

  4. Incorporate the ham or bacon, young carrots, salt, pepper, and herbs.

  5. Cover and simmer for 1.5 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the chicken and add the rich gravy or stock and lemon slice to the pan.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain and thicken the sauce.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the chicken.

  2. Arrange boiled young carrots around the dish before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender during long, gentle braising.
Onion
Browning in the pan builds sweetness and savoury depth for the sauce.
Rich gravy or stock
Forms the braising liquid and the base of the final sauce.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a tender texture to the dish.
Ham or bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the braising liquid.
Lemon
Adds a bright acidity that lifts the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the lid on. A gentle, covered simmer lets collagen in the chicken break down slowly, giving tender meat. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can dry the meat out while the liquid reduces too fast.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, ham, carrot, pepper):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, ham, carrot, pepper. 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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