Name: Chicken a LA Marengo
Ingredients: ½ cup castor sugar; 4 eggs; ½ pint milk; 1 teaspoon essence of vanilla; chestnuts; butter; flour; chocolate

Why it works: Vanilla and chestnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 244 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken a LA Marengo

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Bake or roast the chestnuts, remove both skins, and place them in a saucepan with a small amount of water. Cook until tender, then rub through a fine sieve.
Break the chocolate into small pieces, add it to the milk in a saucepan, and simmer until dissolved.
In another saucepan, melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Then add the milk and stir until it boils.
Add the cake crumbs to the mixture and stir until it leaves the sides of the saucepan clear. Allow to cool slightly.
Beat in the egg yolks, chestnut puree, and vanilla essence.
Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.
Pour into a well-buttered mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam for 1½ hours or bake in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C) for 1 hour.
Serve with vanilla or custard 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.

Vanilla + chestnuttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together244 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,020 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Chestnut + flourtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together517 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, butter, flour, chocolate):

Almondfits better
Hazelnutfits about as well
Chestnutthe original
Macadamia nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, butter, flour, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.