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Fricassee of Chicken in Ten Minutes

A quick chicken fricassee made with butter, mushrooms, parsley, shallots, salt, spice, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken in Ten Minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Warm the chicken limbs in a stew pan with butter.

  2. Remove the chicken and add mushrooms, parsley, and chopped shallots to the remaining butter.

  3. Season with salt and spice, then set over the fire.

  4. Pour in white wine and reduce the sauce over a brisk fire.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the pan to keep hot without boiling the sauce.

  2. Serve the chicken on a dish 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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken limbs
Provide the main meat, which is gently warmed in butter to cook through and stay tender.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and body to the sauce as they cook down.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that deepens the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour, and reduces to concentrate the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce over a brisk fire. Boiling the wine down concentrates flavour and thickens the sauce. If the heat is too low the sauce stays thin and watery, and if the chicken is returned while the sauce still boils it can toughen and overcook.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

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