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Chicken Saute, with Tomatoes

A sautéed chicken dish cooked with tomatoes, garlic, white wine, and finished with meat jelly and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Saute, with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the chicken

  1. Heat the butter in a stew pan until hot.

  2. Add the chicken pieces, skin side down.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Cook over high heat, turning occasionally.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Mince the tomatoes.

  2. Warm them in oil until dried.

  3. Add to the chicken with the chopped garlic.

  4. Moisten the mixture with white wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Cover the pan.

  2. Cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Stir in the meat jelly.

  4. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  5. Boil for a few more minutes.

  6. Adjust seasoning.

  7. Serve on a round dish, heaping it to a point.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and, cooked slowly, releases flavourful juices into the pan.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, breaking down into a sauce that coats the chicken.
White wine
Deglazes the pan and adds acidity that lifts the flavour of the sauce.
Meat jelly
Adds gelatin, giving the sauce a glossy body and rich mouthfeel.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the chicken and carries rich, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Cook over high heat, turning occasionally. Browning the chicken on high heat develops flavourful Maillard compounds on the surface. Crowding or under-browning leaves the pieces pale and the sauce flat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, pepper, tomato, garlic, white wine, meat):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Basilfits about as well
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, pepper, tomato, garlic, white wine, meat. 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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