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 ↓
Minced Fowl, with Savouey Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the stock
Place the bones, skin, and rough pieces of the fowl in a saucepan with 1 quart of water, onion, carrot, garlic, clove, sugar, salt, and pepper, then boil for 2 hours.
Wash the rice and boil it in 1 quart of cold water for 15 minutes.
Strain and set aside.
Cook the fowl and rice
Mince the fowl and season with 1½ teaspoons salt, white pepper, parsley, baked flour, chopped mushroom, and lemon juice.
Put the minced fowl in a saucepan with enough gravy to moisten it, then simmer gently for 18 minutes, stirring frequently.
In another saucepan, melt the butter with the rice and stir over the heat for 5 minutes.
Add the remaining gravy and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
Serve
Serve the rice around the dish with the minced fowl in the center.
Serve very hot.
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.
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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fowl
- Provides the meat and, with its bones, the flavourful gravy base for the dish.
- Rice
- Absorbs the gravy as it cooks, giving the dish its soft, moist body.
- Butter
- Coats the rice grains with fat, adding richness and helping them stay separate while toasting.
- Baked flour
- Thickens the gravy so the minced fowl clings together rather than sitting in liquid.
The step that matters
Simmering the minced fowl with the gravy. Stirring frequently over gentle heat keeps the minced meat from sticking and scorching, and a gentle simmer keeps it tender rather than tough.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, garlic, sugar, pepper, rice, butter):
- Parsleyfits better
- Cuminfits better
- Thymefits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, garlic, sugar, pepper, rice, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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