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Chickens a LA Marengo

A chicken dish with olive oil, tomato sauce, lemon juice, crayfish, fried eggs, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Chickens a LA Marengo

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the chicken in olive oil.

  2. Add tomato sauce and lemon juice.

  3. Arrange the chicken pieces on a serving dish.

  4. Pour the sauce over the chicken.

  5. Garnish with crayfish, fried eggs, and croutons.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  5. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the main protein, which browns and firms as it cooks in the oil.
Olive oil
Conducts heat for browning the chicken and carries flavor through the dish.
Tomato sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, adding moisture, body and acidity.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato sauce and balances its richness.
Eggs
Fried as a garnish, where their proteins set and firm in the hot pan.

The step that matters

Cook the chicken in olive oil.. Browning the chicken well over steady heat builds flavor in the pan and helps the sauce taste deep rather than flat. Cooking it through fully matters for safety.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, olive, tomato, sauce, crayfish, egg, bread):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, olive, tomato, sauce, crayfish, egg, bread. 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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