Name: Timbales De Poulet a LA Meridionale
Ingredients: finely minced chicken meat; demi-glace sauce; panade; Worcester sauce; butter; tomato puree; Madeira wine sauce

Why it works: Chicken and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,031 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Timbales De Poulet a LA Meridionale

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix the minced chicken, demi-glace sauce, panade, and a little Worcester sauce.
Butter the timbale moulds.
Fill the moulds with the chicken mixture, placing some reduced tomato puree in the center.
Steam the filled moulds in the oven until cooked through.
Serve with Madeira wine sauce.

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.

Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,031 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, sauce, butter, madeira wine):

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Onionfits about as well
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, sauce, butter, madeira wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.