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Fricassee

A creamy chicken stew made with butter, flour, water, onions, mace, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine water, butter, flour, salt, and white pepper in a stewpan and stir until hot.

  2. Add the chicken joints and minced onions, then cook for 1 hour.

  3. Before serving, gradually stir in the beaten egg yolks and cream, ensuring it does not boil.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a rich, smooth body when gently heated.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it heats with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and helps carry it smoothly.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Onions
Soften during cooking and add sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. If the mixture boils after the egg yolks go in, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy. Stirring gradually and keeping it below boiling keeps it smooth and thickened.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chicken, onion, mace, egg, cream. 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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