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Fricasseed Chicken

Steamed jointed chicken simmered in milk and flour, served over 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

Prepare the chicken

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

  2. Reserve 1 cup of the chicken drippings in a kettle.

Make the sauce

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Pour in 1 pint of rich milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Mix ½ tablespoon of flour with a little cold milk, then stir into the boiling mixture.

  4. Remove from heat when it begins to thicken.

Serve

  1. Split 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
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender when steamed until cooked through.
Chicken drippings
Carry concentrated meat flavor into the milk sauce.
Rich milk
Forms the base of the creamy sauce, adding moisture and richness.
Flour
Thickens the boiling milk mixture into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Baking powder biscuits
Soak up the sauce and give a soft, starchy base for serving.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour mixture. Flour mixed with cold milk first keeps it from clumping. Adding it to the boiling liquid lets the starch swell evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than lumping.

“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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