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Chicken ‘capillotade’

A hash of cooked chicken with onions, vinegar, broth, pepper, and chopped gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ‘capillotade’

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the chicken and cut it into pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, moisten the chicken pieces with melted glaze and keep warm without boiling.

Make the onion sauce

  1. Mince the onions and sauté them in butter over low heat until they take on color.

  2. Add vinegar to the onions and let it reduce to a glaze.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the onions and moisten with gravy or broth, then add pepper.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the onion mixture over the chicken and warm without boiling.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped gherkins and serve.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which stays tender and moist when warmed gently rather than boiled.
White onions
Slow sautéing in butter browns their natural sugars, adding sweetness and savory depth.
Butter
Fat for sautéing the onions, carrying flavor and adding richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, and reducing it to a glaze concentrates its sharp tang.
Gravy or broth
Liquid that moistens the onions and forms the sauce around the chicken.

The step that matters

Warm without boiling. Boiling the chicken or the onion sauce toughens the meat and can break the sauce. Gentle heat keeps the chicken tender and moist while it warms through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, vinegar, pepper. 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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