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Chicken Fricassee

A stew of chicken pieces browned in fat, finished with a milk and flour gravy seasoned with lemon, celery salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the chicken

  1. Cover the chicken with boiling water, add salt, pepper, and bay leaf.

  2. Simmer until tender, then remove the large bones.

Fry the chicken

  1. Dredge the meat with a little salt and pepper, then roll in fine bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot drippings or deep fat until golden brown, then drain on paper.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the flour and butter together until smooth, then gradually add the milk, beating well.

  3. Add the chicken broth and season with lemon juice, celery salt, and white pepper.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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; simmering makes it tender before it is breaded and fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried in hot fat.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens it.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as a roux with butter, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce, thickened by the roux.
Chicken broth
Adds savory depth and liquid to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the flour and butter until smooth before adding the milk. Cooking flour in fat as a roux lets the starch swell evenly; adding milk gradually while beating prevents lumps and gives a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, bread, butter, milk, lemon, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, bread, butter, milk, lemon, flour. 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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