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Fricasseed Ckeckeit

A chicken fricassee made with simmered chicken, onion, herbs, flour, butter, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Fricasseed Ckeckeit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chicken

  1. Pour 1 pint of cold water over the chicken pieces in a pot.

  2. Add the grated onion, thyme, sweet marjoram, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Cover the pot and simmer slowly until the chicken is tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix 3 tablespoons of flour with butter until smooth.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the gravy and add mace and cayenne if desired.

  3. Cook until the flour is well incorporated.

  4. Pour in ½ cup of rich sweet cream and bring to a simmer.

  5. Add the beaten egg yolks and serve immediately.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and flavour that the gravy is built from.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter
Combined with the flour to make a smooth base and add richness.
Rich sweet cream
Adds richness and body, softening the gravy's sharpness.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce boils after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy, so keep the heat low and stir steadily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, thyme, marjoram, pepper, flour, butter, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, thyme, marjoram, pepper, flour, butter, egg. 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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