Name: Sumac Chicken with Bread Salad Recipe
Cook time: 1 h 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 (3- to 3-1/2-pound) whole chicken; Kosher salt; Freshly ground black pepper; 5 tablespoons olive oil , plus more to coat the baking dish; 2 medium red onions (about 1 pound), thinly sliced; 2 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped Italian parsley; 12 ounces dense bread (such as farm bread or pane de casa), cut into 1-inch cubes; 8 ounces Kirby cucumbers (about 3 medium), quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch pieces; 12 ounces ripe tomatoes , cored, seeded, and cut into 3/4-inch pieces; Juice of 1/2 lemon , plus more as needed

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, olive, onion, garlic, parsley, bread):

Thymefits better
Cuminfits better
Basilfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, olive, onion, garlic, parsley, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Red Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Cucumber	1/2 cup sliced (52g)	16
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Sumac Chicken with Bread Salad Recipe