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Fricassee of Chicken

A creamy chicken stew with butter, flour, milk, cream, eggs, lemon, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into neat pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a chafing dish and stir in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the milk and bring to a boil.

Make the fricassee

  1. Add the chicken and cook over medium heat for ten minutes.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix them with the cream.

  3. Add the egg and cream mixture, along with pepper, salt, and parsley to the dish.

  4. Stir until it begins to thicken.

  5. Add lemon juice and serve at once.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while the flour cooks into a roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce by swelling with heat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce that coats the chicken.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce gently when heated and add richness.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, softer texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream mixture. Egg proteins set when heated, so the sauce can curdle or turn grainy if it boils or cooks too hot. Keep the heat moderate and stir steadily as it thickens.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, milk, cream, pepper, 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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