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Fricassee a LA Minute

A quick chicken fricassee made with butter, flour, parsley, shallots, mushrooms, white wine, and chicken stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fricassee a LA Minute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces without soaking.

Make the fricassee

  1. Fry the chicken pieces in butter quickly, then remove them from the pan.

  2. Add flour to the pan and stir smoothly.

  3. Add parsley, shallots, coarse sea salt, black pepper, spices, and mushrooms.

  4. Moisten with white wine and chicken stock.

  5. Return the chicken to the pan and let it stew for a few minutes.

  6. Serve with the sauce.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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; quick frying sears the surface while the stew finishes it through.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and carries flavour into the pan.
Flour
Stirred into the pan fat to thicken the sauce as liquid is added.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and body to the sauce during stewing.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Add flour and stir smoothly. Flour must be stirred into the fat so it coats the particles evenly; if it clumps, it stays as lumps in the sauce instead of thickening it smoothly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, shallot, pepper, mushroom, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, shallot, pepper, mushroom, white wine. 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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