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Chicken with Peas

A stew of chicken and peas cooked with butter, parsley, green onions, consomme, veal gravy, culis, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Combine the chicken, peas, butter, parsley, and green onions in a stewpan.

  2. Shake the mixture over a fire until warmed.

  3. Moisten with consomme, veal gravy, and culis.

  4. Add white sugar.

  5. Let it simmer for about 1.5 hours until the chicken is cooked.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim off any grease.

  2. Serve the sauce thick.

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.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers in the liquid.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a soft texture to the finished dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the sauce.
Veal gravy
Gives the sauce body and savoury depth as it reduces.
Consomme
Supplies a clear, savoury stock base that moistens the chicken and peas.

The step that matters

Simmer until the chicken is cooked. Simmering gently over a long period lets the chicken become tender without drying out. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the sauce, so keep the heat low and steady.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, parsley, onion, veal, sugar, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, parsley, onion, veal, sugar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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