Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,147 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the chickens
Lard the chickens and season with pepper, salt, and mace.
In a deep stew-pan, layer veal, bacon, onion, carrot, and beef.
Place the chickens breast down and add sweet herbs, then another layer of beef.
Pour in the broth or water, cover, and stew gently for 1 hour.
Make the ragout and sauce
Prepare the ragout by stewing sweetbreads, cockscombs, truffles, morels, and ox palate with a little broth or water.
Once the chickens are done, keep them hot and strain the cooking liquid.
Skim off the fat and add the liquid to the ragout along with red wine, ketchup, and mushrooms.
Boil the mixture with artichoke bottoms and asparagus tops.
If the sauce is too thin, thicken it with butter rolled in flour.
Serve
Serve the chickens on a dish and pour the ragout over them.
Garnish with lemon.
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.
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Chicken + beeftop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,147 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Onion + beeftop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,091 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + carrottop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,808 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together21,599 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chickens
- Provide the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the stock until tender.
- Veal
- Adds savory body and richness to the cooking liquid as it stews.
- Red wine
- Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the ragout and sauce.
- Butter and flour
- Thicken the sauce, giving it body and a smooth, coating texture.
- Sweetbreads
- Provide a tender, delicate texture to the ragout.
The step that matters
Thickening the sauce with butter rolled in flour. Adding flour-thickened butter too quickly or to a boiling liquid can leave lumps. Whisking it in gradually over gentle heat gives a smooth, glossy sauce.
Flavor stand-ins for the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, veal, onion, carrot, beef, truffle):
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Garlicbetter flavor fit
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, veal, onion, carrot, beef, truffle. 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).
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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