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Fricasseed Chicken

A chicken fricassee cooked with bacon, pepper, mustard, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, and cut up the chickens.

  2. Soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

Cook

  1. Place the chickens in a pan and cover with cold water. Heat slowly.

  2. Cut the bacon into strips and fry until crisp.

  3. Season the chickens with black pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Make deep gashes in the chicken joints and fill with a mixture of mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Broil the chickens until heated through.

Serve

  1. Place on a hot dish and spread with butter.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Bacon
Renders fat that adds savoury flavour and crisp texture when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the cooked chicken.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that mellows with heat.

The step that matters

Broil the chickens until heated through. Broiling is intense, direct heat, so the chicken can scorch on the outside before the thick joints near the bone are cooked through. Checking the thickest pieces for doneness prevents undercooked meat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter. 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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