Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Saute a LA Marengo

A sautéed chicken dish with mushrooms, tomato sauce, brown sauce, chives, truffles, served with croutons of puff paste and fried eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Chicken Saute a LA Marengo

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into 6 pieces.

Brown and braise

  1. Heat the salad oil in a stewpan and brown the chicken for about 10 minutes.

  2. Pour away the oil, then add the mushrooms, tomato sauce, brown sauce, chives, and truffles.

  3. Cover the stewpan and simmer in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Arrange nicely on a silver dish and serve with croutons of puff paste and fried eggs as garnish.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Chive + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main protein; browning the pieces first builds colour and savoury flavour.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that combines with the sauces during simmering.
Tomato sauce
Provides acidity and body, giving the braising liquid its characteristic flavour.
Brown sauce
Adds richness and depth to the braising liquid as it reduces.
Truffles
Contribute a strong aroma that gently perfumes the sauce during simmering.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken. Browning in hot oil creates Maillard flavour and colour on the surface. Pale chicken yields a flatter sauce, so the pieces should be well coloured before the oil is poured away.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, truffle, mushroom, tomato, sauce, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, truffle, mushroom, tomato, sauce, egg. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes