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Chicken Fricassee

Chicken Fricassee is a stew of chicken simmered with onion, celery, milk, cream, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Wash the chicken inside and out.

  2. Clean the giblets.

  3. Place the chicken in a stewpan.

  4. Cover the chicken with boiling water.

  5. Add the chopped onion and celery.

  6. Simmer until the vegetables are tender.

  7. Remove the chicken from the stewpan.

  8. Keep the chicken warm in the oven.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the cooking liquid.

  2. Return the liquid to the heat.

  3. Add the rich milk.

  4. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  5. Thicken the mixture with blended flour and butter.

  6. Stir until smooth.

  7. Stir in the minced parsley.

  8. Simmer for a couple of minutes.

  9. Whisk in the rich cream just before serving.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  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 flavour that the cooking liquid carries into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and is cooked with the flour to form the thickener.
Rich milk
Adds body and a mild sweetness to the sauce.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with blended flour and butter. Flour must be fully blended and stirred smooth into the hot liquid, since lumps form when flour is added without being dispersed. Keeping the sauce simmering briefly lets the starch swell and cook out any raw flour taste.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, celery, milk, flour, butter, cream. 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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