Name: Chicken, Fricassee of
Ingredients: 1 cold braised chicken, filleted; ¾ pint Cream Bechamel Sauce; 2 ounces butter; 24 fresh button mushrooms

Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken, Fricassee of

Ingredients

1 cold braised chicken, filleted
¾ pint Cream Bechamel Sauce
2 ounces butter
24 fresh button mushrooms

Directions

Make the fricassee

In a stew pan, combine the filleted chicken with the Cream Bechamel Sauce and butter.
Add the fresh button mushrooms and let it stew for 20 minutes.

Serve

Arrange the chicken fillets neatly around the dish, pour the sauce over them, and place the mushrooms in the center.

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.

Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,172 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cream bechamel sauce: Forms the creamy sauce that coats the chicken and mushrooms and keeps them moist.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps it coat the chicken smoothly.
Button mushrooms: Add earthy flavor and a tender texture that soaks up the sauce as they stew.

“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.