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Fricassee De Poulet

A French chicken fricassée with butter, onions, carrots, broth, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 De Poulet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chicken pieces and brown on all sides.

  3. Stir in the onion and carrots, cooking until softened.

  4. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a simmer.

  5. Cover and cook for 30 minutes until the chicken is tender.

  6. Remove the chicken and keep warm.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Stir in the heavy cream, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Return the chicken to the pot, coat with the sauce, and garnish with parsley before serving.

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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 becomes tender through slow moist cooking in the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the chicken and a rich, nutty flavour to the base.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the aromatic base of the sauce.
Carrots
Soften during simmering and add gentle sweetness to the sauce.
Chicken broth
Forms the cooking liquid that tenderises the chicken and becomes the base of the sauce.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and body, thickening and enriching the sauce as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the heavy cream. Once cream is added, the sauce must only simmer gently. Boiling hard can cause the dairy to separate and turn grainy, and the sauce can become too thick or break.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, carrot, cream, pepper, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, carrot, cream, pepper, parsley. 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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