Name: Chicken a LA Marengo
Ingredients: young fowls; rasped fat bacon; slice of ham; onion; salt; pepper; lemon juice

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken a LA Marengo

Ingredients

Directions

Cut up the young fowls as for a fricassee.
Place them in a frying pan with the rasped fat bacon and slice of ham.
Add chopped onion and season with salt and pepper.
Fry until the fowls and onions are nicely colored.
Remove the fat, add a little lemon juice, and serve.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,159 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,646 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).