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Fricasseed Chicken, with Green Corn

A stew of chicken pieces, corn, cream, and butter, seasoned with peppercorns and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken, with Green Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Cut the corn from the cob and place it in a pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover the corn and stew until nearly done.

  3. Add the chicken pieces to the pot and stew together for about 30 minutes.

  4. Add the whole peppercorns and the cream or milk.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the mixture with flour stirred into the butter.

  2. Add salt to taste before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Corn + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and meaty flavor that the stew is built around.
Green corn
Adds natural sweetness and body as it stews into the liquid.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the finished sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the sauce becomes smooth and coats the chicken.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and helps the flour blend into a smooth thickener.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour stirred into the butter. Flour must be cooked in fat before or as it meets liquid, or it clumps and leaves a raw starchy taste. Stirring it into melted butter first coats the granules so they disperse evenly and thicken the sauce smoothly.

“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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