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Fricassee Chicken with Apple

A stew of chicken and apples simmered in a browned gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Fricassee Chicken with Apple

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the chicken

  1. Place the chicken in a deep kettle and cover it with water.

  2. Add a little salt.

  3. Cook the chicken until tender.

  4. Pour off the liquid.

Brown and thicken

  1. Brown the chicken in salt pork fat.

  2. Thicken the gravy.

  3. Season with pepper.

Add apples and serve

  1. Arrange the apple halves, skin side down, over the chicken.

  2. Pour the gravy over the apples.

  3. Cover tightly.

  4. Cook for 10 minutes or until the apples are tender.

  5. Serve the apples on a separate dish as a sauce.

  6. If the gravy needs butter, add it after removing the apples.

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

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

  2. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender when simmered in water.
Salt pork fat
Fat for browning the chicken, building color and savory flavor on its surface.
Tart apples
Soften during covered cooking and become a sauce, adding tartness that balances the rich gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy, smoothing its flavor and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook the apples only until tender. Apples held too long in covered heat turn to mush and lose their shape. Covering traps steam that cooks them gently, so checking tenderness at the stated time prevents overcooking.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

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