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To Fricassee Fotjols, and All Kinds of White Meats and Fish

A white fricassee of chicken, finished with rich cream and egg yolks, with optional mushrooms, oysters, or vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Fricassee Fotjols, and All Kinds of White Meats and Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Prepare and truss the chicken.

  2. Boil the chicken and skim it.

  3. Simmer the chicken in a vegetable braise with mace, lemon zest, white pepper, salt, onion, and carrot for 12-15 minutes.

  4. Remove the chicken.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the stock.

  2. Mix a piece of butter with rice or flour.

  3. Cook the butter and flour until smooth.

  4. Add the mixture to the strained stock.

  5. Cut up the chicken.

  6. Warm the chicken with the rich cream, without letting it boil.

  7. Add egg yolks to thicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Optionally add cooked mushrooms, oysters, or vegetables.

  2. Garnish with lemon slices.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and, combined with flour, forms a roux that thickens the stock.
Rice or fine wheaten flour
Starch that thickens the stock once cooked in butter with it.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently set, adding richness and body.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and flavour the braising stock and sauce.

The step that matters

Warm the chicken with the cream without boiling. Egg yolks added to the sauce can curdle and turn grainy if the mixture gets too hot, so the sauce should be kept warm rather than boiled.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, cream, nutmeg, egg, mace, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, cream, nutmeg, egg, mace, lemon. 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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