Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Brown Fricassee of Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Poach the chicken
Pack the chicken pieces into a stew pan and cover with warm water.
Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
Remove the chicken from the boiling water, discard skin and bones, and dry each piece.
Make the gravy
Fry the salt pork in a pan until crisp, then remove from the pan.
Mix the cream gradually with the flour to thicken.
Dust the chicken pieces with flour and fry in the pork fat until light brown.
Keep the fried chicken warm in a hot dish.
Add the chicken broth to the pork fat and bring to a boil.
Stir in the thickened cream until smooth.
Season with pepper, mace, and salt to taste.
If the gravy is not dark brown, burn the sugar and stir it in.
Finish and serve
Add the chicken pieces to the gravy and boil briefly.
Serve with gravy poured over the meat.
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.
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Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,417 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,093 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 meat that is braised and then browned in pork fat.
- Cream
- Adds richness and body, and thickens the gravy with flour.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream and coats the chicken so it browns in the fat.
- Salt pork
- Supplies fat for frying the chicken and flavours the gravy.
The step that matters
Browning the floured chicken in pork fat. Flour-dusted chicken fried over steady heat browns through the Maillard reaction and gives the gravy its colour and flavour. Overly high heat can scorch the flour before the meat is light brown.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, cream, flour, pepper, sugar):
- Nutmegfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, cream, flour, pepper, sugar. 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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