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Fricassee of Chicken

A stew of chicken pieces cooked in a sauce of onion, lard, flour, stock, vinegar, sherry, Worcestershire sauce, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Sauté the chicken pieces with minced onion in hot lard until browned.

  2. Add flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

  3. Pour in boiling water or stock, vinegar, sherry, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.

Finish the sauce

  1. Remove from heat and strain the sauce, discarding fat particles.

  2. Mix in the egg yolk and pour the sauce over the chicken 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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 the browned flavour base when sautéed in lard.
Lard
Fat for browning the chicken and carrying flavour into the pan.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and liquid.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a smoother, richer texture.

The step that matters

Mix in the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, so adding it to a very hot sauce can scramble it. Let the sauce cool slightly before stirring in the yolk for a smooth result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, vinegar, sherry, sauce, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, vinegar, sherry, sauce, pepper, egg. 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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