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Chicken Fricassee

A stew of chicken pieces simmered in a butter‑flour sauce with onions, mushrooms, and a creamy egg‑milk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken pieces in water for 1-2 minutes, then drain.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until bubbling.

  3. Add the water or broth, parsley, nutmeg, onions, salt, and pepper.

  4. Add the chicken pieces, cover, and simmer slowly without burning.

  5. Stir occasionally and add more broth or water if the sauce dries out.

  6. Cook for 1 hour for young chicken or 2 hours for older chicken.

  7. Remove the chicken and keep it warm; strain the sauce if desired.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Add mushrooms and their liquor to the sauce, boil for 1 minute.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the milk.

  3. Remove the sauce from heat, wait 1 minute, then stir in the egg mixture.

  4. Return the sauce to low heat, stirring until thickened but do not boil.

  5. Arrange the chicken pieces on a serving dish as desired.

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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour, and helps form the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety body when gently heated.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.
Milk
Adds richness and helps the egg yolks blend smoothly into the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the sauce. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but if the sauce boils after they are added, the proteins scramble and the sauce curdles. Removing it from heat first and returning it to low heat keeps it smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, onion, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, onion, mushroom. 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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