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Fricassee of Fowls

A stew of fowls simmered in butter, flour, cream, and herbs, finished with egg yolks and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricassee of Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cut-up fowls in cold water for 2 hours to make them white, then drain them.

  2. Melt the butter and stir in the flour until combined.

Stew and finish

  1. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sweet herbs.

  2. Pour in the cream.

  3. Add the fowls and let them stew for 45 minutes, covered with buttered paper and the lid kept on tightly.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowls
Provides the main protein; gentle stewing keeps the meat moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the melted butter and liquid.
Cream
Adds moisture and body, giving the sauce a smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Enriches and thickens the sauce as they set gently with heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks and lemon juice. Egg yolk proteins set when hot, so if the sauce boils after they go in it can scramble or curdle. Keep the heat low and the sauce just warm while stirring them in.

“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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