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Fricassee of Chicken

A chicken stew with vegetables, stock, mushrooms, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Clean the chicken, skin it, and cut it into joints.

  2. Soak the chicken pieces in cold water for 10 minutes.

  3. Dry the chicken pieces with a clean cloth.

Make the stock

  1. Wash and slice the carrot, peel the onion, and wash the celery and parsley.

  2. Place the vegetables in a stewpan.

  3. Add thyme, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, and mace to the vegetables.

  4. Add the chicken pieces and 1½ pints of stock to the stewpan.

  5. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil.

  6. Cook for about 30 minutes.

  7. Remove the chicken once cooked.

  8. Wash the chicken in cold water.

  9. Dry the chicken with a cloth.

  10. Strain the stock into a basin.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut off the stalk ends of the mushrooms, wash them, and peel them.

  2. Add the mushrooms and a piece of butter to the stewpan.

  3. Squeeze cream over the dish 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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 and body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the mushrooms and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the chicken.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow finish.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a gentle boil. A rolling boil toughens chicken proteins and can cloud the stock. Keeping it at a gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the stock clear.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, clove):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, clove. 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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