Name: Chicken Saute
Ingredients: legs and wings of a medium-sized chicken; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 2 or 3 sprigs of parsley, chopped; 1 small onion, finely chopped; 1 egg-sized piece of butter

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 ↓

Chicken Saute

Ingredients

legs and wings of a medium-sized chicken
coarse sea salt
black pepper
2 or 3 sprigs of parsley, chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 egg-sized piece of butter

Directions

Prepare

Season the chicken legs and wings with salt and pepper.
Add chopped parsley and onion to the chicken.
Mix in the butter until well combined.

Cook

Place the mixture in a bag and cook for 25 minutes.

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).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken legs and wings: Provides the main protein and body of the dish.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping keep the chicken moist as it cooks.
Onion: Adds aroma and a mild sweetness as it cooks.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, parsley, egg, butter):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, parsley, egg, butter. 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.