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Fricasseed Chickens

A braised chicken dish simmered in a cream and spice sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Fricasseed Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken pieces in cold water until the blood is drawn out.

  2. Wipe the chicken, season with pepper and salt, and dredge with flour.

  3. Fry the chicken in lard or butter until golden brown on both sides.

  4. Remove the chicken from the pan, cover, and keep warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Skim the gravy in the frying pan, add ½ pint of cream, and season with nutmeg, mace, and cayenne.

  2. Thicken the sauce with a small amount of butter rolled in flour and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce around the chicken to keep it hot.

  2. Fry parsley in lard until green and crisp, then place on top of 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which browns in fat and is then gently cooked in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the chicken for browning and, with butter, thickens the cream sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, mellow texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour for frying and, rolled in flour, helps thicken the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour. Adding the butter and flour mixture to the sauce must be followed by a boil, which activates the flour's starch so the sauce thickens. Stirring in the flour gradually prevents lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, butter, cream, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, butter, cream, nutmeg, 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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