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Another Excellent Fricassee

A chicken fricassee made with onions, thyme, marjoram, and a creamy sauce thickened with flour and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Another Excellent Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the chicken

  1. Place the chicken pieces skin-side down in a kettle.

  2. Add the grated onion, thyme, sweet marjoram, pepper, and salt.

  3. Cover and simmer gently until the chicken is tender.

  4. Remove the chicken and keep it warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with the butter.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the gravy.

  3. If desired, add a pinch of mace and cayenne pepper.

  4. Simmer until the flour is cooked.

  5. Pour in the cream and simmer for a moment.

  6. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  7. Pour the sauce over the hot chicken and serve immediately.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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 through gentle, covered simmering.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when mixed with butter and cooked, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps blend the flour smoothly into the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce is too hot they can scramble and curdle. Keep the sauce below a simmer when adding them and stir constantly for a smooth result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, thyme, marjoram, pepper, flour, egg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, thyme, marjoram, pepper, flour, egg, butter. 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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