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Fricasseed Chicken

A French-style chicken stew with a creamy sauce made from butter, flour, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces.

  2. Sprinkle the chicken with salt, pepper, and spices.

  3. Add cold water to a kettle.

  4. Place the chicken skin side down in the kettle.

  5. Slice the onion over the chicken.

  6. Cover the pot.

  7. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

  8. Remove the chicken from the pot.

  9. Keep the chicken warm on a platter.

Make the gravy and sauce

  1. Rub butter and flour together.

  2. Add a little gravy to mix smoothly.

  3. Stir the mixture into the gravy.

  4. Boil for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Pour in the cream.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Pour the mixture over the beaten yolks.

  8. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  9. Heat thoroughly without boiling.

  10. Pour over the chicken.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken (in the method)
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and with flour forms the base that thickens the gravy.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the finished sauce.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the sauce as they gently set, adding richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly without boiling. Egg yolks begin to set and can curdle or turn grainy if the sauce gets too hot, so the sauce should be heated gently once the yolks are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, mace, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, mace, pepper, nutmeg, 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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