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Poulet Aux Olives

Poulet aux Olives is a roasted chicken cooked with olives, breadcrumbs, butter, and a glaze of lemon, jelly, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Poulet Aux Olives

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Dust the chicken lightly with spiced pepper.

  2. Set the chicken aside.

  3. In a large bag, combine butter or oil, garlic, breadcrumbs, and the chicken.

  4. Place the bag on the grid in a 400°F (200°C) oven and cook for 30 minutes.

  5. Carefully drain the chicken.

  6. Transfer the chicken to a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Pour off the grease from the remaining breadcrumbs.

  2. Remove the garlic.

  3. In a clean bag, mix the remaining gravy with glaze, lemon juice, red currant jelly, and stock.

  4. Fold the bag.

  5. Heat it until very hot.

  6. Add the stuffed olives.

  7. Heat for 5 minutes on the grid.

  8. Pour over the chicken.

  9. Garnish with straw potatoes or spinach.

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 + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the bag until tender.
Butter or oil
Carries fat into the bag, helping the chicken brown and stay moist as it roasts.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the cooking fat and add a crisp, toasted texture to the chicken.
Glaze
Adds sweetness and gloss to the sauce as it reduces with the gravy.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the richness of the gravy.
Stuffed olives
Add a briny, salty flavour that contrasts with the sweet and rich sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce until very hot before adding the olives. Bringing the sauce fully hot ensures the olives and sauce warm through evenly and the jelly and glaze dissolve smoothly into a glossy sauce before serving.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, butter, clove, garlic, lemon, olive):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter, clove, garlic, lemon, olive. 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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