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Fricasseed Chicken, with Green Corn

A stew of chicken pieces and corn simmered in cream, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken, with Green Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Cut the corn from the cob and place it in a pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover the corn and stew until nearly done.

  3. Add the chicken pieces to the pot and stew together for about 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cream or milk and a few whole peppercorns.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour stirred into melted butter.

  3. Add salt last and serve.

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

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

  2. Corn + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Green corn
Adds sweetness and body to the stew as it cooks down.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory flavor, becoming tender as it stews.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor and helps the flour thicken the sauce evenly.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour stirred into melted butter. Flour clumps if added straight to hot liquid. Stirring it into melted butter first coats the starch grains so they disperse and thicken the sauce smoothly.

“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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