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Chicken Fricassee

A chicken stew finished with a sauce of flour, butter, cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken in enough water to cover until tender, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour off the broth, reserving 1 pint.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, rub 3 tablespoons of flour smooth with 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Cook the flour mixture, then gradually pour in ½ cup of cream or milk.

  3. When simmering, add 1 beaten egg yolk.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the chicken on a platter.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour, adding fat and a smooth richness.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce further, giving it a silky texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the roux into a creamy sauce.
Chicken broth
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor for the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat; if the sauce boils hard after it goes in, the yolk can curdle and turn grainy. Keep it at a simmer and stir constantly.

“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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