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Devilled' Chicken Feicasse

A deviled chicken dish with a brown sauce of butter, flour, mustard, lemon, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and seasoned crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 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 ↓

Devilled' Chicken Feicasse

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Clean and cut the chicken into pieces.

  2. Put the chicken in a kettle and cover with boiling water.

  3. Cook slowly until tender. When the chicken is half done, add carrot, onion, celery, parsley, bay leaf, peppercorns, and salt.

  4. Remove the chicken.

  5. Strain the liquid (there should be 2 cups).

  6. Cool the liquid quickly to remove fat.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and cook until browned.

  2. Add flour and continue browning.

  3. Gradually stir in the chicken stock.

  4. Mix mustard, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon rind, lemon juice, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce, then add the mixture to the sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. Dip each piece of chicken in the sauce, then in seasoned crumbs.

  2. Arrange the chicken pieces in a baking pan.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned, basting once with melted butter.

  4. Serve on a hot dish and pour remaining sauce around.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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; cooking it slowly in liquid keeps the meat tender and yields stock for the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, melted, helps the coating brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce that clings to the chicken.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts the richness of the butter and sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and acidity to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooling the stock to remove fat. Fat floating on hot stock would make the roux greasy and the sauce separate, so the liquid should be chilled quickly and skimmed before it is used.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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