Name: Legs of Chicken with Truffles
Ingredients: legs of chicken; truffles; fat liver; brown sauce; butter; fried bread

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Legs of Chicken with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Bone the chicken legs.
Fill them with a mixture of truffles and fat liver.
Reduce the brown sauce until very thick and mix in the salpicon.
Fill the legs with the mixture and sew them up neatly.
Braise the legs in a covered pot until cooked through.
Drain and glaze the legs before serving.
Serve with a Perigueux sauce and fried bread.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together756 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Truffle + livertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together395 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).