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Fricassee of Chicken

A chicken fricassee with a creamy sauce thickened with flour, egg yolks, and cream, served warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut off the wings and legs of the chickens.

  2. Divide the breast from the back.

  3. Cut the breast and back into two pieces each.

  4. Remove the lungs from the back bone.

  5. Trim the leg bones.

  6. Place all chicken pieces in cold water.

  7. Bring a pot of water to a boil.

  8. Add each chicken joint separately to the boiling water.

  9. Boil until firm.

  10. Transfer the chicken to a bowl of cold water.

  11. Trim each piece neatly.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the trimmed chicken pieces to the stewpan.

  3. In the water used for blanching, add the chicken trimmings and parsley.

  4. Let it stew for one hour.

  5. Strain the broth through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  6. In the stewpan with chicken, add enough flour to thicken the sauce.

  7. Moisten the sauce with the strained broth.

  8. Simmer slowly, checking the chicken for tenderness.

  9. Once tender, remove the chicken from the sauce.

  10. Pass the sauce through a tammy over the chicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, heat the fricassee in a bain-marie.

  2. Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks beaten with cream.

  3. Do not let it boil.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  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 main body and protein of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the stewpan.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the broth.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the finished sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sauce when combined with the yolks.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, and if the sauce boils they can curdle and turn grainy. Keeping it below boiling keeps the sauce smooth and glossy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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