Name: Another Mode to Fricassee Chicken
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken, cut into joints; water, enough to cover the chicken; 1 cup milk; 1 heaping teaspoon flour; salt, to taste; pepper, to taste; salt pork, optional, cut into thin slices; 2 tablespoons butter

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Another Mode to Fricassee Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

In a pot, cover the chicken joints with water and stew until the meat is tender.
In a bowl, mix the milk and flour until smooth.
Add the milk mixture to the pot and bring to a boil.
Season with salt and pepper, then transfer to a platter.
If desired, add salt pork a few minutes before serving.
For a brown fricassee, remove most of the liquid before the chicken is done, add butter, and let the chicken fry until browned.

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.

Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,386 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Flour and butter 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

Chicken: Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it stews in the water.
Milk: Forms the creamy, thickened sauce when combined with the cooking liquid.
Flour: Thickens the milk mixture so the sauce becomes smooth and clings to the chicken.
Butter: Adds richness and, when the chicken is fried in it, promotes browning.

The step that matters

Adding the milk mixture. Flour mixed into milk must be smooth before it goes into the hot pot; lumps form if it is added unmixed, and the sauce needs to boil briefly to fully thicken.

“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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Another Mode to Fricassee Chicken