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Fillet of Chicken or Pheasant

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Chicken and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

Fillet of Chicken or Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Cut the fillets from the breast of the chicken or pheasant.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Place the fillets on a buttered baking tin, season with pepper and salt, and cover with buttered paper.

  4. Bake in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes.

  5. Serve on a hot dish with or without sauce.

  6. If desired, serve the fillets on a strip of mashed potato with white sauce poured over and rolls of toasted bacon around the dish.

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. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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