Name: Stewed Chicken, with Tomatoes and Mushrooms
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken; 1 slice of sweet butter; 1 onion, finely minced; 1 carrot, scraped; salt; pepper; 3 or 4 tomatoes; ½ pound of mushrooms

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 ↓

Stewed Chicken, with Tomatoes and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Draw the chicken and cut it into neat pieces.
Melt the butter in a good-sized saucepan.
Add the minced onion and scraped carrot, and stir over the heat for 3 minutes.
Add the chicken pieces, season with salt and pepper, and fry in the butter.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,172 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

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

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, onion, pepper, tomato, mushroom):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Spinachfits about as well
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, onion, pepper, tomato, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.