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Fricassee Chicken

A stew of chicken simmered in a creamy sauce of milk, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken in salt water for 30 minutes.

  2. Place the chicken in a pot and cover with cold water and salt pork.

Stew

  1. Cover the pot and heat slowly, then stew for 1 hour or until tender.

  2. Add chopped parsley and pepper, cover, and heat until boiling.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix milk, beaten eggs, and flour.

  2. Gradually add a few spoonfuls of the hot liquid to the egg mixture while stirring.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the pot and bring to a boil.

  4. Add butter and arrange the chicken in a deep dish, pouring the gravy over it 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 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).

Flour and butter 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 meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Eggs
Thicken the gravy as they set when heated, giving it body.
Flour
Thickens the milk and egg mixture so the gravy coats the chicken.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the creamy gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to finish the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the hot liquid. Adding the egg mixture too quickly or without tempering with hot liquid first can scramble the eggs. Adding a few spoonfuls of hot liquid gradually while stirring brings the mixture up in temperature slowly, so it thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

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