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A Brown Fricassee of Chicken

A brown fricassee made with chicken, salt pork or butter, flour, water or stock, salt, onion juice, and black pepper.

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 ↓

A Brown Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, heat the salt pork or butter until browned.

  2. Add the chicken pieces and stir until browned on all sides.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour and stir again.

  4. Pour in the boiling water or stock and stir until it boils.

  5. Add the salt, cover, and let simmer gently until the chicken is tender.

  6. Stir in the onion juice and season with black pepper 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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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 protein, which browns for flavour and becomes tender through gentle simmering.
Salt pork or butter
Fat that browns in the pan, building colour and savoury flavour for the sauce.
Flour
Stirred into the browned fat and liquid, it thickens the sauce.
Boiling water or stock
Liquid that forms the sauce and gently cooks the chicken.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken on all sides. Browning creates the Maillard reaction, giving the dish its brown colour and deeper flavour. Pale or steamed chicken at this point makes a weaker, blander fricassee.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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