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Simpler Mode for Fricassee

A chicken fricassee made with a butter‑flour sauce thickened with egg yolks and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Simpler Mode for Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Combine the chicken, water, onions, parsley, nutmeg, salt, and pepper in a stewpan.

  2. Cook until the chicken is done.

  3. Remove the chicken from the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and flour until bubbling.

  2. Strain the gravy from the chicken into the saucepan.

  3. Stir the gravy until smooth.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with the milk.

  5. Stir the mixture into the sauce after it has cooled for one minute.

  6. Pour the sauce over the chicken.

  7. 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 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 meat, cooked gently in water until tender.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter into a roux.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid that becomes the gravy.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture into the sauce after it cools for one minute. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy, so letting it cool briefly and stirring steadily helps keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, butter, flour, egg. 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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