Name: Aunt Abby's Chicken Pie
Ingredients: 2 plump, tender chickens; water (enough to cover the chickens); thin slices of sweet salt pork; small butter crackers (optional); cooked potatoes (optional)

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Aunt Abby's Chicken Pie

Ingredients

2 plump, tender chickens
water (enough to cover the chickens)
thin slices of sweet salt pork
small butter crackers (optional)
cooked potatoes (optional)

Directions

Joint the chickens and stew them in barely enough water to cover for 30 minutes.
Remove the chickens from the liquid and place them in a deep dish.
Layer the chicken with slices of salt pork and optionally, halves of butter crackers.
Season the cooking liquid well and pour it over the chicken.
Prepare a top crust and place a rim around the edge of the dish, wetting it slightly to help it stick.
Ornament the top with pastry as desired.
For a heartier dish, add a layer of cooked potatoes at the bottom of the dish.

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 + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,756 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

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