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Rice Hex

A chicken dish cooked with butter, bacon grease, onion, and water to make a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and chicken 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 ↓

Rice Hex

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. In a frying pan, heat the butter and bacon grease over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook until browned.

  3. Add the chicken pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Pour in 1 tablespoon of water, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.

  5. Remove the cover and turn each piece of chicken until browned.

  6. Add a little more water to create gravy before serving.

Serve

  1. Transfer the chicken to a platter and pour the gravy over it.

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. Onion + chickentop 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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the pan and helps the onion and chicken brown.
Onion
Its sugars brown in the pan, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Chicken
The main protein, which cooks through and browns on the outside.
Bacon grease
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the pan.

The step that matters

Remove the cover and turn the chicken until browned. Covering the pan traps steam and softens the skin. Uncovering lets moisture evaporate so the surface can brown, which gives flavour and colour to the chicken and the gravy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, chicken, 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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