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Fricassee of Chicken

A stew of chicken simmered in stock with carrot and onion, thickened with flour and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into neat joints.

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the chicken in a saucepan with the stock, carrot, and onion.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the stock and return it to the saucepan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the stock with flour mixed with a little water.

  2. Simmer for another 5 minutes, then pour over the chicken.

  3. Garnish with finely minced parsley.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 flavour, cooked gently in the stock.
Stock
Forms the cooking liquid and the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the stock with flour. Flour mixed with water before adding should be stirred in smoothly. Dropped in dry or added to a rapid boil, it clumps, and the sauce stays lumpy. Simmering afterward lets the starch swell fully and cook out its raw taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, flour, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, flour, parsley. 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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