Name: Chickens with Lemon Sauce
Ingredients: 2 chickens; bacon (for barding); lemon juice; coarse sea salt; scalded tarragon (for garnish)

Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chickens with Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Boil or braise the chickens with bacon until cooked through.
Wipe the chickens dry.
Pour lemon sauce over the chickens or place it around them.
Garnish with scalded tarragon leaves on the breasts.

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.

Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Chicken + tarragontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together619 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,092 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).