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Chicken Fricassee

A chicken dish simmered in a brown flour and milk gravy with butter and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the chicken pieces in butter until golden, then transfer to a hot dish.

  2. In the boiling chicken broth, whisk together the egg, brown flour, and milk.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

  4. Pour the gravy over the chicken.

  5. If desired, fry slices of onion in the butter and add to the dish.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Egg
Thickens the gravy as it cooks and gives it a rich, smooth body.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy and gives it a toasted, slightly nutty color and flavor.
Butter
Browns the chicken pieces and adds richness and flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the gravy.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg and flour into the broth. If the boiling broth is hot enough, the egg and flour can scramble or clump before they blend. Whisking steadily and keeping the mixture below a hard boil helps it stay smooth and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, egg, flour, milk, pepper, parsley. 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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