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Fricasseed Chicken

Fricassee Chicken is a braised chicken dish cooked slowly with onion, parsley, pork fat, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Dissect the chicken into pieces: two for the breast, two for the back, and separate each joint.

  2. Wash the pieces without wiping them dry.

Cook

  1. Layer the chicken pieces in a pot, sprinkling minced onion, parsley, and chopped fat pork between each layer.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cover the pot tightly and cook on low heat for at least one hour without boiling.

  4. Increase the heat slightly and continue cooking slowly until the chicken is tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and arrange on a platter, keeping it warm.

  2. To make the gravy, pour the cooking liquid into a bowl set in iced water to separate the fat.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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; slow, covered cooking keeps the meat tender and moist.
Fat pork
Adds fat that enriches the cooking liquid and gives the gravy body and flavour.
Onion
Releases moisture and sweetness as it softens, flavouring the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the heat low and never let it boil. Gentle simmering keeps muscle proteins from tightening and toughening, so the chicken becomes tender and the cooking liquid stays clear enough for a smooth gravy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, pork, 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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