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Chickens, a LA Florentine

A sautéed chicken dish with ham, vegetables, and a glaze of Malaga wine, finished with Espagnole sauce and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chickens, a LA Florentine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chickens in halves and trim them neatly.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. In a deep sauté pan, heat the salad oil and add a faggot of parsley, green onions, and garlic.

  4. Add the ham or bacon, cut into squares and parboiled for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the pimento powder, button onions (parboiled for 5 minutes), carrots, and mushrooms.

Cook and glaze

  1. Cook over moderate heat until the chicken and vegetables are lightly colored.

  2. Pour off the grease, add the Malaga wine and glaze, and simmer until reduced to a glaze.

  3. Toss the chicken and vegetables in the glaze, then dish up the entrée, reserving the mushrooms to garnish.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour a spoonful of Espagnole sauce and lemon juice into the sauté pan, simmer, and pour over 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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main protein; browning in the pan builds flavor on the surface.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavors the pan and the glaze.
Button onions
Soften and turn sweet as they cook, adding aroma and body to the dish.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a tender texture after parboiling and sautéing.
Malaga wine
Reduces into a sweet, concentrated liquid that forms the glaze.
Espagnole sauce
Adds a rich, savory brown sauce body to finish the dish.

The step that matters

Reducing the Malaga wine and glaze. Simmering until the liquid thickens concentrates sugars and flavors into a glaze. If it is under-reduced it stays thin and waters down the chicken; if over-reduced it can scorch and turn bitter.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, garlic, ham, onion, carrot, mushroom, wine. 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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