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Chickens and Peas

A skillet dish of bacon, chicken, peas, and herbs simmered in butter and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chickens and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and add the bacon. Cook until lightly browned.

  2. Add the cut-up chickens and a little stock. Mix well.

  3. Season with parsley, young onions, garlic, salt, and pepper.

  4. Bring to a boil, then add the peas. Cook uncovered over high heat.

  5. Skim off any foam, and if the sauce is too thin, reduce it before serving.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein that is braised in the bacon and butter mixture.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that flavours the butter and the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the bacon brown and the sauce taste rounded.
Peas
Add sweetness and bright green flavour, and are cooked briefly in the sauce.
Chicken stock
Provides moisture and body so the chicken cooks in a flavourful liquid.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce before serving. If the sauce is too thin it will run off the chicken and peas. Reducing it concentrates flavour and thickens it through evaporation, so it should be checked before serving.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, chicken, parsley, onion, clove, garlic, 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.

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