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Fricasseed Chickens

Chicken pieces simmered in a butter‑flour sauce with gravy and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Salt the giblets slightly and keep on ice or boil them in 1 pint of water if the weather is warm.

  2. Scald the chicken pieces in boiling water for 4 minutes, then place them in ice water for 10 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Add the skimmed fat, necks, and heads to the quart of boiling water and stew for 1 hour until there is 1 pint of gravy.

  2. Strain the gravy, cool it, and remove the fat.

Stew the chicken

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and sauté the minced onion.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of flour and stir until they begin to simmer.

  3. Add the chicken joints, turning them in the butter until they start to color.

  4. Add enough gravy to prevent scorching and stew covered for at least 1 hour.

  5. Keep the chicken hot, strain the gravy, and season with parsley, pepper, and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. In another saucepan, heat ½ cup of hot milk and pour it over the beaten eggs.

  2. Stir well and add to the gravy just 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Butter
Carries the onion and chicken pieces, adding richness and encouraging light browning.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the chicken.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the milk-based sauce when stirred in off the heat.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the finished sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and milk mixture. Eggs thicken when heated, so if the mixture boils or sits over high heat after it joins the hot gravy, it can curdle and turn grainy. Adding it just before serving and stirring well keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, milk, 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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