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Fricassee of Chicken

A stew of boiled chicken served in a cream bechamel sauce with mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until cooked, then let it cool.

  2. Cut the chicken into neat joints.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine the cream bechamel sauce and chopped mushrooms.

  2. Add the chicken joints to the sauce and let them stew together.

Serve

  1. Arrange the chicken in the center of a serving dish and pour the sauce over it 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 as it cooks and holds its shape in the stew.
Cream bechamel sauce
Forms a smooth, rich sauce that coats the chicken and adds body through its thickened dairy base.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a soft, moist texture as they release juices into the sauce.

The step that matters

Letting the chicken stew in the sauce. Simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the proteins tender and prevents the cream sauce from splitting or turning grainy. Too much heat can toughen the meat and curdle the dairy.

“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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