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Fricassee Des Poulets a LA Paysanne

A French chicken fricassée cooked with butter, parsley, green onions, mushrooms, flour, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Fricassee Des Poulets a LA Paysanne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Singe the chickens well and carve them smoothly.

  2. Wash the chickens in lukewarm water and blanch them briefly in boiling water.

  3. Plunge the chickens into cold water, then place them in a stew-pan with butter, parsley, green onions, and mushrooms.

Make the sauce

  1. Warm through and lightly color the mixture, then dredge with flour.

  2. Add salt, white pepper, and some of the blanching liquor, then let simmer for 30 minutes or longer if chickens are large.

  3. Transfer the chickens to another saucepan, skim off the fat, and reduce the sauce by boiling.

  4. Strain the sauce over the chickens and just before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolks.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps lightly color the chicken for flavor and richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid, giving it body.
Egg yolks
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce during simmering.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so they must be added just before serving and kept below a simmer; boiling after adding them can curdle the sauce.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, parsley, onion, mushroom, flour, egg. 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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