Name: How to Make Chicken Enchiladas
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 12 enchiladas
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons lard; 1/2 onion, sliced; 2 cloves garlic, sliced; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon cumin seeds; 2 poblano peppers, seeded and thinly sliced; 2 Anaheim peppers, seeded and thinly sliced; 4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into chunks; 4 cups chicken broth; 2 cups chicken broth; 4 dried guajillo chiles, stemmed and seeded; 2 dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded; 1 corn tortilla, cut into 1-inch strips; 4 tomatoes, cut in half crosswise; 3 tomatillos, cut in half crosswise; 2 tablespoons lard; 1/2 onion, sliced; 5 cloves garlic, sliced; 2 teaspoons cumin seeds; 2 cups chicken broth; salt to taste; 1 teaspoon white sugar, or more to taste; 3 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped; 12 corn tortillas; 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped; 1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco

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).
Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,082 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cumin + tomatotop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,272 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Clove + cumintop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,306 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 (onion, garlic, cumin, pepper, chicken, corn, tomato):

Oreganofits better
Corianderfits better
Turmericfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, garlic, cumin, pepper, chicken, corn, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Chocolate	1 oz (28g) semisweet	155
Corn Tortilla	1 medium flour (45g)	140
Lard	1 tbsp (12.8g)	115
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Cumin	1 tsp ground (2.1g)	8
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Cilantro	1 tbsp chopped fresh (1g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Seed	not in our table	0

How to Make Chicken Enchiladas