Name: Fricasseed Chicken with Tomato
Ingredients: 1 tomato; enough water to cover the tomato; 1 whole chicken, cut up; ½ cup cream or milk; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 piece of butter the size of an egg; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; seasoning to taste

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken with Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Place the tomato in a pot and cover it with water.
Stew until nearly done.
Add the cut-up chicken to the pot and stew together for 30 minutes.
Mix the flour with the butter until smooth, then add to the pot.
Stir in the cream or milk and season with pepper, salt, and other seasonings to taste.

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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + chickentop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,031 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Provides the main protein and body of the stew as it cooks in the liquid.
Flour: Mixed with butter and added to thicken the cooking liquid into a smoother sauce.
Butter: Blended with the flour to form a paste that helps thicken the sauce and adds richness.
Cream or milk: Added at the end to make the sauce creamier and add richness.
Tomato: Stewed in water to build the base flavor of the dish.

Swap the tomato

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

Potatofits better
Leekfits better
Spinachfits better
Tomatothe original

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