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Fricassee of Chicken

A French stew of chicken joints simmered in a white wine and cream sauce with onions and mushrooms.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fricassee

  1. Fry the chicken joints in a little butter without allowing them to color.

  2. Sprinkle the flour over the chicken and let it cook briefly.

  3. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil, stirring until thickened.

  4. Add the herbs, onion, mushrooms, and white wine, then simmer gently.

  5. Once cooked, dish up the chicken and mushrooms, strain the sauce over them, and add the cream.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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 and body of the dish as it simmers in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the fat and juices.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, creamy sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished sauce.
Button mushrooms
Contribute savory, earthy flavor to the sauce during simmering.

The step that matters

Frying the chicken without browning. Keeping the chicken pale preserves the light, delicate color and flavor of a white fricassee. Browning would create darker, roasted notes that clash with the classic style, and the flour and stock added next depend on the chicken being gently cooked rather than seared.

Swap the onion

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

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

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