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Fricassee of Chicken

A chicken fricassee made with stock or milk, carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, mace, butter, flour, egg yolks, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Cook the chicken in the stock or milk with the carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, and mace until tender.

  2. Remove the chicken and strain the stock.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the strained stock, stirring until thickened.

  3. Add the egg yolks and lemon juice, mixing well.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the sauce, season with salt and pepper, and serve.

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

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main cooked meat that the sauce is served with.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens it.
Flour
Combined with butter to form a roux that thickens the stock into a sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Stock or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and cooks the chicken until tender.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the sauce is too hot they can scramble into lumps. Stir them in off the heat or over low heat, and keep stirring to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, carrot, onion, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, carrot, onion, parsley, butter, 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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