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To Make a White Fricassee of Chicken

A creamy chicken fricassee made with milk, cream, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

To Make a White Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Skin and clean the chickens thoroughly, then soak them in cold water to draw out the blood.

  2. Dry the chicken pieces with a clean cloth.

Stew the chicken

  1. In a stewpan, combine the milk and water in equal parts, then add the chicken pieces and stew over gentle heat until tender.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. In another stewpan, melt the cream and butter together, stirring continuously until well mixed.

  2. Remove the chicken from the first stewpan using a silver fork or tongs and transfer it to the cream and butter mixture.

  3. Add salt, mace, and pickled mushrooms (if using) to the mixture, stirring well to combine.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that becomes tender through gentle stewing.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cream blend into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the gentle stewing liquid, adding mild sweetness and body.

The step that matters

Stew over gentle heat until tender. High heat makes the milk mixture scorch or boil hard, which toughens the chicken and can curdle the dairy. Slow, gentle heat keeps the proteins relaxed and the liquid smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, cream, butter, mushroom):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, cream, butter, mushroom. 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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