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A Fricassee of Chicken

A stew of chicken pieces simmered in water with salt, pepper, and optional butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

A Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the chicken by removing feathers and entrails, then cut it into pieces at the joints.

  2. Place the chicken pieces in a kettle and cover with boiling water.

Cook

  1. Simmer gently until tender, about 1 hour for a young chicken or 2 hours for an older one.

  2. Remove the cover during the last 30 minutes to reduce the gravy.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, and add butter if the chicken is low in 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. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering, and its juices form the base of the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and a silkier mouthfeel to the gravy.

The step that matters

Remove the cover during the last 30 minutes. Uncovering lets steam escape, so the liquid reduces and thickens into a concentrated gravy. Keeping the lid on would leave the sauce thin and watery.

“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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