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Fricasseed Chicken

A boiled chicken served with a milk and flour gravy, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut up the hen and soak it overnight in slightly salted water.

  2. In the morning, place the hen in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam.

Simmer

  1. Let it simmer all morning; do not add salt until nearly done.

  2. Once cooked, remove the chicken to a platter.

Make the gravy

  1. Add 1 pint of milk to the broth.

  2. Thicken the broth with white flour mixed with milk.

  3. Pour the gravy over the chicken.

  4. Garnish with parsley.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + parsleytop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,011 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Hen
Provides the meat and flavour for the dish and the broth that becomes the gravy.
Milk
Adds richness and body to the broth, making the gravy creamy.
White flour
Thickens the broth into a gravy as it cooks with the milk.

The step that matters

Do not add salt until nearly done. Salt added early can toughen the meat as it simmers for a long time, and salt concentrates as the broth reduces. Adding it near the end lets you season the finished broth accurately.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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