Name: Fricassee of Chickens the Venetian Way
Ingredients: chickens; carrot, sliced; celery, sliced; parsley, chopped; mushrooms; cucumber, pieces; artichoke, trimmed; macedoine of vegetables

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chickens the Venetian Way

Ingredients

Directions

Cut and prepare the chickens as directed in recipe No. 471.
In a saucepan, combine sliced carrot, celery, and parsley.
Add mushrooms, cucumber pieces, and artichoke before adding the liaison.
Top with a trimmed artichoke filled with a little macedoine of vegetables.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cucumber + artichoketop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Parsley + artichoketop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together524 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, celery, parsley, mushroom, artichoke):

Spinachfits better
Shallotfits better
Turnipfits better
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, celery, parsley, mushroom, artichoke. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.