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Fowl Fricasseed

A stew of chicken pieces with bacon, herbs, and mushrooms, simmered in stock and finished with butter and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fowl Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fowl

  1. Draw the fowl and cut it into small, neat joints.

  2. Place the joints in a stewpan with shallot, bacon rind or ham, cloves, carrots, and bouquet garni.

  3. Pour in enough stock to barely cover the fowl, add pepper and salt, and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  4. After 30 minutes, drain the stock into a basin and let it cool to remove grease.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash and peel the mushrooms, then place them in a separate stewpan with butter, lemon juice, and cold water.

  2. Boil the mushrooms once and then turn them onto a plate.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the main meat, and its joints release flavour and gelatin into the stock as it simmers.
Stock
Cooks the fowl gently and becomes the flavourful base of the dish.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep mushrooms pale.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. Vigorous boiling makes meat proteins tighten and toughen, and it churns fat and particles into the liquid, clouding the stock. A gentle simmer keeps the fowl tender and the stock clear.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, ham, clove, carrot, parsley, thyme, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, ham, clove, carrot, parsley, thyme, pepper. 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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