Name: Aspic of Chicken
Ingredients: white meat of a cooked chicken; jelly; hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Why it works: Meat and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,449 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Aspic of Chicken

Ingredients

white meat of a cooked chicken
jelly
hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Directions

Cut the white meat of the chicken into nice pieces.
Pour a little jelly into a mold and let it set.
Lay the pieces of chicken in the set jelly.
Add more jelly and let it set again.
Gradually add the rest of the jelly until the mold is filled.
If desired, place slices of hard-boiled egg among the chicken pieces for decoration.

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.

Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,991 recipes

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