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Fricassee Chicken

A stew of chicken simmered in a seasoned broth, thickened with a roux and finished with beaten egg yolks and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a pot, stew the chicken trimmings and legs with lemon peel, mace or herbs, onion, seasoning, and enough water to reduce to 1 pint.

  2. Strain the mixture and add it back to the chicken in a pot; let it boil for 45 minutes.

Thicken and finish

  1. In another pan, melt a little butter, then add flour and a bit of hot water to create a roux.

  2. Add the roux to the chicken and let it boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Before serving, stir in the well-beaten yolks of 1-2 eggs and a little cream, but do not let it boil again.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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
Provides the meat and flavour base for the fricassee.
Flour
Forms a roux with butter that thickens the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when stirred in gently.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the roux.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce boils again after they are added, the proteins can scramble and the sauce turns grainy and curdled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lemon, onion, butter, flour, egg, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lemon, onion, butter, flour, egg, cream. 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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