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Fricassee of Chicken

A stew of whole chicken simmered in butter, flour, and water with oysters, mushrooms, onions, and lemon.

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 of Chicken

serves 6

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Truss the chicken as for boiling and rub it with lemon juice.

  2. Blanch the chicken in boiling water for 3 minutes.

Make the sauce and simmer

  1. In a shallow stewpan, melt the butter and stir in the flour.

  2. Add enough tepid water to reach halfway up the chicken when laid on its side.

  3. Add a pinch of coarse sea salt and a small piece of lemon peel.

  4. Cover the stewpan with buttered paper and a lid, then simmer for 3 hours.

  5. Turn the chicken onto the other side and add oysters, mushrooms, or onions.

  6. Simmer again until the chicken is tender but not falling apart.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the chicken, keep it warm, and reduce the sauce if too thin or add cream to enrich it.

  2. Garnish the chicken with the oysters, mushrooms, and onions.

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. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked slowly until tender in the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce base with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Button mushrooms
Adds earthy flavour and texture to the finished dish.
Button onions
Adds sweetness and tender texture as they cook in the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the chicken until tender but not falling apart. Gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue so the meat becomes tender. A hard boil toughens the proteins and can make the chicken fall apart, so the heat must stay low and steady.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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