Name: Chicken Fricassee
Ingredients: chickens; cold water; coarse sea salt; salt pork (optional); 1 head of celery; baking powder biscuits; flour; water or milk

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Cut up the chickens and place them in a kettle with enough cold water to cover.
Add a little coarse sea salt or sliced salt pork if desired.
Boil until the chicken is tender.
Remove the chicken, cut it up, and add it to a part of the head of celery.
Prepare hot baking powder biscuits and break them open on a platter.
Place the chicken on top of the biscuits.
Thicken the gravy with flour moistened with water or milk, then pour it over the chicken and biscuits.

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.

Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Biscuit + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together889 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Celery + biscuittop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together150 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,386 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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, pork, biscuit, flour, milk):

Capersfits better
Nutmegfits better
Jalapenofits better
Celerythe original

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