Why it works: Parsley and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,668 recipes mention both. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Cut the fowl into pieces, detaching the wings and legs, and dividing the breast, back, and bones into handsome pieces.
Make the dish
In a stewpan, layer sliced onions and chopped parsley, then add pieces of fowl, repeating layers until all ingredients are used. Add bay leaves and coarse sea salt.
Pour in olive oil (or cream) and simmer gently until cooked through.
Serve
Serve with the onion in the middle.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Parsley + olivetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,668 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Onion + olivetop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together26,431 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).
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Onion + parsleytop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together25,834 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fowl
- Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers slowly in the pot.
- Onions
- Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding moisture and body to the dish.
- Olive oil
- Adds fat that carries flavour and helps keep the fowl moist while it cooks.
The step that matters
Simmer gently until cooked through. Gentle heat lets the fowl cook through and turn tender without the meat tightening or drying out, which vigorous boiling tends to cause.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, olive):
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Carrotbetter flavor fit
- Eggplantbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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