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Fowl, Fricasseed

Cold boiled fowl simmered in gravy with onion, mace, lemon peel, white pepper, herbs, veal knuckle, finished with a butter‑flour roux, cream, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fowl, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled fowl into pieces.

  2. Simmer the fowl in gravy with onion, mace, lemon peel, white pepper, and herbs for 20 minutes.

  3. If desired, add a bit of knuckle of veal for flavor.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix butter and flour together, then add to the gravy.

  2. Stir in cream, nutmeg, and salt to taste.

  3. Cook until the sauce thickens, then serve.

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

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

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, cohesive sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness, and combines with flour to form the thickening base.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Cold boiled fowl
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers in the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until the sauce thickens. Flour must be cooked long enough for its starch to swell and set the sauce; undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mace, lemon, veal, butter, flour, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mace, lemon, veal, butter, flour, 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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