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Fricasseed Chicken

Chicken simmered in gravy, browned in hot fat before cooking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Remove pin feathers, singe, and cut off the oil gland from the chicken.

  2. Take out the crop and windpipe at the neck.

  3. Cut off the legs and wings, dividing each into two parts.

  4. Remove the heart, liver, and gizzard together, then take out the lungs and kidneys.

  5. Divide the back, loosen the shoulder blade, and separate the back from the breast.

Cook and serve

  1. Rinse the chicken quickly and cover it with boiling water, cooking until tender.

  2. Brown the chicken in hot fat.

  3. Serve with hot gravy, or stew the browned chicken in the gravy until tender.

  4. Add mushrooms or other vegetables 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 and meat that becomes tender through simmering.
Hot fat
Browns the chicken pieces, building color and roasted flavor on the surface.
Gravy
Adds moisture and flavor, and can finish the chicken by stewing it until tender.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the surface quickly. Browning creates color and savory flavor through the Maillard reaction, and a pale, crowded pan will steam the pieces instead.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Tomatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom. 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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