Name: Crispy Sweet and Sour Chicken
Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients: For The Sauce:-; 1 Tablespoon of olive oil/ cooking oil (olive oil works better); 1 onion or a couple of spring onions Diced; 1 garlic clove chopped; 1 Tablespoon of dark soy sauce; 2 Tablespoons of Balsamic Vinegar (Any vinegar will do but I find this is the best); 1 Tablespoon of tomato puree; 125 ml of cold Water; 1 Tablespoon of cornflour; 2 Tablespoons of sugar; 1/2 567g tin of chopped Pineapple (but use all of the juice from the tin for the sauce); 1 red pepper sliced; 1 carrot sliced into thin strips; For The Crispy Chicken; 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts chopped into chunks; 100g cornflour; 150g plain flour; 10g baking powder; pinch of salt and pepper; Iced water (enough to make a thin batter that will just stick to your finger)

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 ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, olive, onion, garlic, vinegar, tomato, sugar):

Capersfits better
Cuminfits better
Corianderfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, olive, onion, garlic, vinegar, tomato, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Pineapple	1 cup chunks (165g)	82
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Sauce	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0

Crispy Sweet and Sour Chicken