Name: Chicken Canape
Ingredients: 2 lb chicken, cut in cubes; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 cup celery, diced; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; Pinch of celery salt; 1 pint milk; Saltines, broken

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Canape

Ingredients

Directions

In a chafing dish, melt the butter and flour together.
Once melted, add the milk and stir until it thickens to a cream.
Add the chicken, salt, pepper, celery salt, and the slightly beaten egg.
Finally, stir in the diced celery and pour the mixture over the broken saltines.

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 celery

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

Cinnamonfits better
Thymefits better
Nutmegfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, pepper, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.