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Fricasseed Chicken

A chicken stew cooked with pork, onions, parsley, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Clean, wash, and cut up the chickens. Do not soak them.

  2. Place the chickens, sliced pork, and enough cold water to cover them in a pot.

  3. Heat slowly until the chickens are tender.

Make the gravy

  1. Add the chopped onion, parsley, and pepper. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the butter and flour together, then stir the mixture into the pot.

  3. In another saucepan, heat the milk and add the beaten eggs. Boil for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Arrange the chickens on a serving dish. Strain the gravy and stir in the milk and eggs.

  2. Pour the sauce over the chickens without returning to the heat.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in water.
Fat salt pork
Adds savory fat and flavor to the cooking liquid as it renders.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce, making it creamy.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat.

The step that matters

Pour the sauce without returning to the heat. Once the eggs are in the milk sauce, further boiling can curdle them, leaving a grainy texture. Serving it off the heat keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, onion, pepper, butter, flour, milk. 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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