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Chicken Fricassee

A stew of chicken pieces simmered with onion, parsley root, celery, tomatoes, and a flour‑water thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Singe and thoroughly clean the chicken.

  2. Cut off the wings, legs, and neck.

  3. Separate the breast from the chicken, leaving it whole.

  4. Cut the back into two pieces.

  5. Mix salt, ginger, and a little pepper in a saucer. Dust each piece of chicken with this mixture and let it sit for a whole day if possible.

Stew

  1. In a kettle, place the fat removed from the chicken, chopped onion, parsley root, and celery.

  2. Lay the chicken pieces in the kettle, starting with the breast, then the legs.

  3. Top with chopped tomatoes or canned tomatoes. Cover tightly.

  4. Let it stew slowly on low heat, adding hot water as needed.

  5. Mix flour with a little cold water and add this to the kettle. Let it boil once, shaking the kettle gently to prevent lumps.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, chop fresh parsley and add it 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and, through its fat and bones, the body of the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother, looser sauce when boiled.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a fresh, tangy flavour that balances the rich chicken.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the chicken fat.

The step that matters

Shaking the kettle after adding the flour mixture. Flour mixed with cold water can clump when it hits hot liquid. Gentle shaking while it comes to a boil disperses the starch so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, onion, parsley, celery, tomato, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, onion, parsley, celery, tomato, 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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