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Fricassee of Chickens with Mushrooms

A stew of chicken pieces simmered with mushrooms, herbs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 Chickens with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chickens into ten pieces each, removing bones as specified.

  2. Place chicken pieces in a stewpan with water, seasoned faggot, clove, mace, peppercorns, mushroom trimmings, and sliced onion; boil for 8 minutes.

  3. Remove chicken pieces, place in cold water, drain, and trim neatly.

  4. Add trimmings to the cooking liquid, reduce by half, skim, and strain through a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In another stewpan, melt butter, add chicken pieces, and sweat for a few minutes.

  2. Stir in flour, mix well, then dilute with the strained liquid; let it boil, cover, and simmer.

  3. Skim the sauce, then strain it over the chicken pieces.

  4. Sauté mushrooms in butter and add to the chicken.

  5. Bring the dish to a boil, then add a mixture of egg yolks and cream, stirring until thick but do not boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Finish with a small piece of butter, season with lemon juice and salt, then 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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, becoming tender from the gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cooking liquid into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving a silky texture.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sauce's texture alongside the egg yolks.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a savoury depth to the sauce and chicken.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour, and helps gently sweat the chicken.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat but curdle and turn grainy if the sauce boils. Keep the heat low and stir constantly until the sauce coats a spoon.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

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