Name: Chicken Pie
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (4-5 pounds); 3 pints water; 1 teaspoon salt (adjust to taste); ¼ teaspoon pepper (adjust to taste); 3 tablespoons flour; 3 tablespoons butter; 2 eggs; 1 tablespoon onion juice; bouquet of sweet herbs

Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the chicken and cut it into serving pieces.
Place the chicken in a pot with hot water, salt, pepper, and herbs.
Bring to a boil, skim off foam, and simmer for 1.5 hours.
Remove the chicken and place it in a deep pie dish.
Boil the broth rapidly for 15 minutes, skimming off fat and removing the herb bouquet.
In a frying pan, melt the butter, then add flour and stir until smooth but not browned.
Gradually stir in the chicken broth and cook for 10 minutes.
Beat the eggs and mix them into the 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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, butter, egg):

Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

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