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Stewed Chicken, with Tomatoes and Mushrooms

A stew of chicken pieces cooked with tomatoes, mushrooms, onion, carrot, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken, with Tomatoes and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw the chicken and cut it into neat pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a good-sized saucepan.

Cook

  1. Add the minced onion and chopped carrot; stir over medium heat for 3 minutes.

  2. Add the chicken pieces, season with salt and pepper, and fry until browned.

  3. Add chopped tomatoes and mushrooms; cook until chicken is tender.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 pan juices.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and richness, helping the chicken take on color.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building a flavor base for the sauce.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that combine with the pan juices into a sauce.
Mushrooms
Release their moisture and savory flavor into the sauce as they cook.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken. Frying the chicken until well browned builds flavor through the Maillard reaction. Pale pieces give a flatter taste, and crowding the pan causes steaming instead of browning.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, onion, pepper, tomato, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion, pepper, tomato, mushroom. 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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