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Chickens, a LA Florentine

Chicken halves cooked with ham, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and wine, finished in a glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion 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 ↓

Chickens, a LA Florentine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Season the chicken halves with mignonette pepper and salt.

Braise and glaze

  1. In a deep sauté pan, heat the salad oil and add the garlic and a faggot of parsley and green onions.

  2. Add the parboiled ham or bacon, button onions, carrots, and mushrooms to the pan.

  3. Cook over moderate heat until the chicken is lightly colored, then drain excess grease.

  4. Pour in the Malaga wine and add the piece of glaze; simmer until reduced to a glaze.

  5. Toss the chicken pieces in the glaze to coat, then plate immediately, garnishing with mushrooms and vegetables.

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.

  1. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Chicken
Forms the main protein; searing lightly colors the skin and seals in juices.
Raw ham or streaky bacon
Adds savory fat and smoky flavor that seasons the pan and the vegetables.
Malaga wine
Adds sweetness and acidity, and reduces into the glaze that coats the chicken.
Button onions
Add sweetness and body as they soften in the pan and absorb the glaze.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and a tender texture after cooking with the chicken.
Salad oil
Conducts heat in the pan and carries garlic flavor evenly across the ingredients.

The step that matters

Reducing the wine and glaze. If the wine and glaze are simmered too briefly, the sauce stays thin and will not coat the chicken. Simmering concentrates the sugars and flavors so they cling to the meat as a glaze.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, garlic, ham, onion, carrot, olive. 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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