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Fricasseed Chicken

A chicken fricassee served over freshly made baking powder biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Steam the jointed chicken over a kettle of boiling water until tender.

Make the gravy

  1. In a kettle, leave 1 cup of the chicken drippings.

  2. Season the drippings with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Pour in the rich milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the flour mixed with a little cold milk until it thickens.

  5. Remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Split the freshly made baking powder biscuits in two and lay them crust side down on a platter.

  2. Pour the chicken mixture over the biscuits and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Butter and flour 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
Steaming until tender makes the meat soft and moist for the dish.
Chicken drippings
Provide the savory, meaty fat that flavours the base of the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the seasoned drippings.
Rich milk
Forms the creamy liquid that gives the gravy its body.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the gravy body.

The step that matters

Thickening the flour mixture. Flour must be whisked smoothly into cold milk before it goes into the hot liquid, otherwise it clumps. Once added, the gravy must come to a simmer so the starch swells and thickens fully.

“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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