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Fricassee of Chickens, with Mushrooms, Etc.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chickens, with Mushrooms, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Singe the chickens over a charcoal flame and cut them into small joints.

  2. Remove the wings and legs, then make parallel cuts on the back to mark where to cut.

  3. Place the chicken on its side and cut the leg and fillet, then repeat on the other side.

  4. Remove the thigh bones, separate the back and breast, and cut the back into two pieces.

  5. Soak the chicken pieces in tepid water for 10 minutes, squeezing to extract blood.

  6. In a stewpan, layer thinly sliced carrot, onion, and celery, then add the chicken pieces.

  7. Add mushrooms, butter, salt, and pepper, then cover with water and simmer until cooked.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, onion, celery, mushroom, butter, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, onion, celery, mushroom, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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