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Brown Fricassee Chicken

A chicken fricassee cooked with onions, tomatoes, thyme, pepper, salt, allspice, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,077 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brown Fricassee Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Fry the chicken pieces in sweet oil or rendered fat until browned.

Make the onions and tomatoes

  1. In a frying pan, add enough oil or fat to fry the sliced onions until soft.

  2. Remove the cover and let the onions brown.

  3. Cut the tomatoes and add them to the pan with the onions to simmer.

Braise and finish

  1. In a saucepan, combine the fried chicken, browned onions, tomatoes, thyme, pepper, salt, allspice, and enough hot water to create a rich gravy.

  2. Cover and cook for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the tenderness of the chicken.

  3. Optionally, add a small piece of garlic and mace while cooking.

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. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 and flavorful as it braises in the gravy.
Onions
Browning and softening sweeten the onions and build savory depth in the gravy.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that blend with the cooking fat to form the gravy.
Sweet oil or rendered fat
Carries heat for browning the chicken and onions and adds richness to the dish.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken and onions. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs a hot, dry surface and enough fat. Crowding the pan or steaming the pieces gives pale, bland flavour that the gravy cannot make up for later.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, tomato, thyme, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, tomato, thyme, 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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