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Fricassee of Small Chickens

A stew of small chicken parts simmered in water, thickened with flour and butter, finished with milk and white wine.

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 ↓

Fricassee of Small Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Separate the breasts from the backs of the chickens and cut off the necks.

  2. Divide the backs across and clean the gizzards and livers.

  3. Place the cleaned parts in a saucepan, add salt, pepper, and mace, and cover with water.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Stew until tender, then remove the chicken parts.

  2. Thicken ½ pint of the cooking water with 2 tablespoons of flour mixed into 4 ounces of butter.

  3. Add ½ pint of milk and boil for a few minutes.

  4. Carefully stir in ⅓ cup of white wine to prevent curdling.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the pan and heat until hot, then 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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Chicken + white winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,904 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender through slow stewing in water.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce, and carries the flour.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the sauce, mellowing its flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the richness of the cream sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the white wine carefully. Acidic wine added to hot milk can cause it to curdle. Adding it slowly and stirring gently keeps the sauce smooth, as the record instructs.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, butter, milk, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, butter, milk, white wine. 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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