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Fricasseed Chicken

A chicken stew thickened with butter, flour, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream gravy

  1. Combine chicken, water, salt, pepper, and onion in a pot.

  2. Boil skin side down until tender.

  3. Remove chicken from pot.

  4. Add cream or milk to the pot.

  5. Mix butter and flour together, then add the mixture to the gravy.

  6. Boil for 2-3 minutes.

  7. Stir in chopped parsley.

  8. Serve.

Fry and thicken

  1. Fry chicken in lard until browned.

  2. Remove chicken and add flour to the pan, cooking for 1 minute while stirring.

  3. Add water or stock and vinegar or Worcestershire sauce.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Boil, then remove from heat.

  6. Strain.

  7. Mix in beaten egg yolk.

  8. Pour over chicken.

  9. Serve.

Salt pork version

  1. Stew chicken in just enough water to cover until tender.

  2. Fry slices of salt pork in a pan.

  3. Drain chicken.

  4. Fry chicken with pork until browned.

  5. Pour in broth.

  6. Thicken with brown flour mixed with water.

  7. Season with pepper.

  8. Return chicken and pork to the gravy.

  9. Simmer for a few minutes.

  10. Serve hot.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. 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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish and becomes tender through slow simmering.
Flour
Its starch swells in hot liquid, thickening the gravy and giving it body.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and combines with flour to form a smooth thickening base.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a silky texture.
Lard
Fat for frying the chicken, helping it brown and develop flavor.

The step that matters

Mix in beaten egg yolk. The sauce should be off the heat and no longer boiling when the yolk goes in. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat, and if it boils it can scramble and turn grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, cream, butter, flour, parsley, vinegar. 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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