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Fricasseed Chicken

A stew of chicken pieces cooked slowly with salt pork, onions, allspice, cloves, catsup, browned flour, parsley, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, and cut up the chickens.

  2. Soak the chickens in cold water for 30 minutes.

  3. Place the chickens in a saucepan and cover with cold water.

  4. Heat slowly.

Make the gravy base

  1. Cut the salt pork into strips and fry until crisp, then remove and chop finely.

  2. Add the chopped pork to the pot with the chickens.

  3. In the remaining fat, fry the sliced onion until browned, then add the onion to the pot.

  4. Stir in the allspice and cloves.

  5. Stew slowly for at least 1 hour until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the chicken pieces and keep warm.

  2. To the pot, add the catsup, browned flour, chopped parsley, and Sherry, and boil once.

  3. Strain the gravy to remove bits of pork and onion.

  4. Return to the pot with the chicken and bring to a final boil.

  5. Serve, pouring the gravy over the chicken.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and flavor to the chicken and gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth when browned and stewed into the gravy.
Brown sherry
Adds acidity and rich, complex aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew slowly for at least 1 hour until tender. Gentle, low heat lets connective tissue break down slowly, so the chicken becomes tender without drying out or toughening. Rapid boiling tightens the muscle fibers and makes the meat stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, allspice, clove, walnut, flour, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, allspice, clove, walnut, flour, parsley. 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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