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Poulet a LA Marengo

A chicken dish simmered with tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and broth, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Poulet a LA Marengo

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Brown the chicken

  1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add chicken pieces and brown on all sides.

  3. Remove chicken and set aside.

Build the sauce

  1. In the same skillet, add onion and garlic; sauté until soft.

  2. Add mushrooms and cook until tender.

  3. Stir in tomatoes and chicken broth; bring to a simmer.

  4. Return chicken to the skillet, cover, and cook for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with parsley 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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which browns for color and flavor and becomes tender as it simmers.
Olive oil
Conducts heat in the skillet and helps the chicken brown evenly.
Onion
Softens and adds aromatic sweetness to the base of the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as it cooks in the sauce.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and add earthy savory flavor and body to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid that combine with the broth into the simmering sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken. Browning over medium heat on all sides creates flavorful Maillard browning on the surface. Crowding the pieces or skipping sides makes them steam, leaving the sauce flat and pale.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, olive, onion, garlic, mushroom, tomato, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, olive, onion, garlic, mushroom, tomato, 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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