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Fricasseed Chicken, with Green Corn

A chicken stew simmered with corn, flavored with black pepper, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

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

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

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

  4. Add the whole black pepper and the cream or milk.

  5. Thicken the mixture with flour stirred into butter.

  6. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Green corn
Provides the main body and sweetness of the stew as it cooks down.
Chicken
Supplies the meat and rich savoury flavour that the stew is built around.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and softness, making the stew creamy rather than watery.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the stew becomes body-rich rather than thin.
Butter
Carries the flour for thickening and adds fat for a smoother, richer texture.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and stirred into the hot liquid to avoid lumps. Adding it unevenly or without enough stirring lets starch clump, leaving a grainy, uneven sauce instead of a smooth, thickened stew.

“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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