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Chicken Fricassee

A stew of chicken, celery, butter, parsley, and oysters simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chicken

  1. Place the chicken in a stew pan and cover it with cold water.

  2. Skim the surface just before it begins to boil.

  3. Add the sliced celery roots and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  4. Cook the chicken for 1 hour.

Finish the fricassee

  1. Stir in the chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 heaped tablespoon of flour.

  3. Stir the mixture into the chicken.

  4. Let it simmer slowly for 15 minutes.

  5. Add the oysters.

  6. Remove from heat as soon as it begins to boil again.

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

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

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

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks slowly in water.
Celery roots
Add a mild, earthy flavour and soft texture as they cook into the broth.
Flour
Thickens the butter-based liquid into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and tender texture when gently heated at the end.

The step that matters

Remove from heat as soon as it begins to boil again. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked, and a boiling sauce can break or curdle, so heat must be stopped promptly once the oysters are added.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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