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Devilled Chicken Fricasse

A deviled chicken fricassé served with a browned butter sauce and seasoned breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Devilled Chicken Fricasse

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Poach the chicken

  1. Dress, clean, and cut the chicken into serving pieces.

  2. Place the chicken in a kettle, cover with boiling water, and cook slowly until tender.

  3. When the chicken is half done, add carrot, onion, celery, parsley, bay leaf, peppercorns, and salt.

  4. Remove the chicken and strain the liquid, which should yield about 2 cups.

  5. Cool the liquid quickly to remove the fat for the sauce.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and cook until browned.

  2. Add the flour and continue browning.

  3. Gradually pour in the chicken stock while stirring constantly.

  4. Mix mustard, salt, black pepper, cayenne, lemon rind, lemon juice, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce, then add to the sauce.

Coat and bake

  1. Dip each piece of chicken in the sauce, then in seasoned breadcrumbs.

  2. Arrange the chicken in a dripping pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned, basting once with melted butter.

  3. Transfer to a hot serving dish and pour the remaining sauce around 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browns with the butter and thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Carries the browning and enriches the sauce, and melted butter gives the baked chicken a golden finish.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts the richness of the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and tang to the sauce.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, cooked gently first so it becomes tender before baking.

The step that matters

Cooling the stock to remove the fat. Fat left in the stock would make the sauce greasy and keep it from thickening smoothly, so the liquid should be chilled quickly and the fat skimmed off before use.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, butter, flour. 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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