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Chicken a LA Marengo

Chicken simmered with mushrooms, truffles, shallots, parsley, butter, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken a LA Marengo

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. In a stewpan, heat oil and add coarse sea salt.

  2. Add chicken pieces and cook until they are browned.

  3. When the chicken is half done, add sliced mushrooms and truffles.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, combine chopped truffles, parsley, mushrooms, shallots, and butter in a stewpan.

  2. Stir and cook until heated through, then season with black pepper, coarse sea salt, white wine, and a couple of spoonfuls of the oil used for the chicken.

  3. Serve the sauce hot under the cooked chicken.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which browns in hot oil to build flavour and a firm texture.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma that defines the dish.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury, meaty body to the sauce as they cook down.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the sauce as they soften.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and oil in the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken. Chicken pieces must brown well in hot oil before the sauce is added. Browning creates flavour through the Maillard reaction, and crowding the pan causes steaming, which leaves the meat pale and bland.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, truffle, shallot, butter, pepper, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, truffle, shallot, butter, pepper, white wine. 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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