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Chickens a LA Macedoine

A boiled chicken served with sautéed cucumbers, boiled French beans, stewed mushrooms, blanched celery, boiled cauliflower, and a butter lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chickens a LA Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Truss the chickens for boiling.

  2. Tie strips of fat bacon over the breast.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut cucumbers into shilling-sized pieces.

  2. Fry them until light brown.

  3. Stew them in consommé.

  4. Cut French beans into squares.

  5. Boil them, keeping them green.

  6. Stew mushrooms.

  7. Blanch celery, cutting it like the cucumbers.

  8. Boil cauliflower until tender.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the chickens gently in mutton broth for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the chickens, drain them, and place them on a serving dish.

  3. Arrange the vegetables around the chickens.

  4. Pour a butter sauce mixed with lemon juice over the dish, ensuring everything is hot.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  5. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Young chickens
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender through gentle simmering in broth.
Fat bacon
Tied over the breast, it bastes the meat with melting fat and keeps it moist.
Cucumbers
Frying to light brown adds savoury colour and flavour before they are stewed.
Butter
Forms a rich sauce that adds fat, smoothness and flavour to the finished dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Boil the chickens gently. Vigorous boiling toughens meat and breaks up its texture, so a gentle simmer keeps the chicken tender and moist.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cucumber, beans, mushroom, cauliflower, mutton, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cucumber, beans, mushroom, cauliflower, mutton, butter. 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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