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Fricassee of Chicken

A stew of chicken pieces simmered with butter, flour, stock, herbs, mushrooms, onions, and finished with a lemony cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken pieces in cold water for 1–2 hours to whiten the flesh, then remove and wipe them dry.

Make the fricassee

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the chicken pieces with flour, stirring to coat.

  2. Moisten with chicken stock, then add salt, pepper, sweet herbs, bay leaf, cloves, mushrooms, and onions.

  3. Stew the mixture slowly until the chicken is cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. To serve, mix the egg yolks, cream, and lemon juice in a bowl, then add to the stewpan without boiling.

  2. Garnish with sippets of bread, cockscombs, or crayfish.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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, which firms and sets as it cooks through slowly.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the sauce while coating the chicken pieces.
Flour
Coats the chicken and thickens the stock into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream sauce into a smooth, rich liaison when stirred in gently.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce boils after they are added, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, pepper, parsley, thyme, marjoram):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, pepper, parsley, thyme, marjoram. 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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