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White Fricasseed Chicken

A white chicken fricassee made with cream, butter, flour, and optional mace or nutmeg.

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 ↓

White Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces and wash them.

  2. Season the chicken with pepper and salt.

Stew and thicken

  1. Place the chicken in a stew pan with a little water and let it stew until nearly done.

  2. Add the cream and butter rolled in flour to thicken the gravy.

  3. Adjust seasoning with more pepper or salt if needed.

  4. If the chicken is fatty, use less butter.

  5. Add mace or nutmeg for extra spice if desired.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Butter and flour 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

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish and gives the stew its meaty flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and with flour helps thicken the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter and liquid.

The step that matters

Rolling the butter in flour before adding it to the gravy. If the flour and butter are added in lumps or without being cooked, the gravy can turn out grainy or floury. Coating the butter in flour helps it blend into the hot liquid and thicken evenly.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

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