Name: Chickens, a LA Chivry
Ingredients: 2 chickens; white broth; small onions; chives; tarragon; chervil; Chivry or Ravigotte sauce

Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,808 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Truss the chickens to make them look plump.
Boil or braise the chickens in white broth until cooked.
Boil small rings of onions in white broth until tender.
Fill the onion rings with a mixture of blanched chives, tarragon, and chervil.
Place the chickens on a serving dish and decorate with the filled onion rings.
Pour Chivry or Ravigotte sauce under the chickens 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,808 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together795 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chive + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together370 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,907 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chive + tarragontop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together544 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, chive, tarragon, chervil, sauce):

Shallotbetter flavor fit
Lettucebetter flavor fit
Mustardbetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, chive, tarragon, chervil, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).