Name: Poulet Fricassee En Bisque — Fricasseed Chicken
Ingredients: 2 ounces Venetian butter; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon chopped chervil; ½ teaspoon chopped tarragon; ½ teaspoon tarragon vinegar

Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Poulet Fricassee En Bisque — Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

2 ounces Venetian butter
1 teaspoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon chopped chervil
½ teaspoon chopped tarragon
½ teaspoon tarragon vinegar

Directions

Finish the sauce by adding the Venetian butter.
Stir in the chopped parsley, chervil, tarragon, and tarragon vinegar.

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.

Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together774 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chervil + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together561 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, chervil, tarragon, vinegar):

Capersfits better
Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, chervil, tarragon, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.