Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Chicken Breasts
Ingredients
Directions
Trim the chicken breasts to resemble lamb chops.
Insert a leg bone into the end of each cutlet.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Roll in flour and fry in a sauté pan with butter.
Serve in a circle on a dish with vegetables in the center.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + peastop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,528 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,331 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + peastop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, butter):
- Cashew nutfits better
- Almondfits better
- Beansfits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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