Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Fricassee

A slow‑cooked chicken fricassee with vegetables, roux, and optional cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By New Orleans Federation of Clubs · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Dress, clean and cut the chicken at the joints into pieces ready to serve.

  2. Season the chicken with salt, pepper, and ginger; let stand several hours or overnight.

Cook and make the sauce

  1. Cover the chicken with boiling water and simmer for 3 hours; add diced onion, celery, and carrot; cook until tender.

  2. Melt chicken fat or butter in a frying pan; add flour; gradually pour in chicken stock; stir to prevent lumps; season to taste; pour over the chicken.

  3. Let cook a few minutes; serve with biscuits or dumplings.

Alternative method

  1. (Alternative) Season chicken with salt and pepper; add red pepper (seeds removed), sliced onion, ½ clove garlic minced, 4 cups diced celery, and 2 bay leaves; cover with boiling water; simmer until tender; drain; serve with cream sauce and boiled rice.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

647Calories
45 gProtein
5 gFat
101 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chicken100g cooked165
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By New Orleans Federation of Clubs. 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. See the original page.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken fat
Carries flavor and helps form a smooth roux base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and stock.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it savory flavor.
Bay leaves
Adds subtle aromatic flavor to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and stock into the fat. Adding the stock gradually while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, preventing lumps and producing a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, clove, garlic, pepper, ginger):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, clove, garlic, pepper, ginger. 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.

More chicken fricassee recipes

with Mushrooms 6White 6Cold 4with Tomato Sauce 3 See all 369 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes