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Fricasseed Chicken, with Green Corn

A stew of chicken pieces and corn simmered in cream or milk, thickened with flour and butter, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Fricasseed Chicken, with Green Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Cut the corn from the cob and place it in a pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover the corn and stew until nearly done.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the chicken pieces to the pot and stew together for about 30 minutes.

  2. Add the whole black pepper and cream or milk.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour stirred into butter.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Corn + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 main protein and savory flavor as it stews in the liquid.
Green corn
Adds sweetness and starchy body to the stew as it cooks.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a creamy, smooth texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour stirred into butter. Flour must be fully blended into the butter and cooked briefly before it goes into the liquid, or it clumps. Stirring the mixture as it simmers keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.

“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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