Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Potted Chicken, Partridge, or Pheasant
Ingredients
Directions
Roast the bird thoroughly until done.
Remove the flesh from the breast, wings, and merrythought, and take off the skin.
Mince the meat and pound it smoothly with about ⅓ cup of fresh butter.
Season with coarse sea salt, mace, and cayenne pepper, adding small portions until well-flavored.
Proceed as with other potted meats.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + macetop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,405 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, pepper):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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