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To Fricassee Chickens

A chicken fricassee made with boiled chicken, gravy, veal or mutton, herbs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Fricassee Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens in a small quantity of water until cooked.

  2. Let them cool, then cut them up.

Make the sauce

  1. Simmer the chicken pieces in the gravy made from the boiling liquid, veal or mutton, onion, mace, lemon peel, white pepper, and sweet herbs until tender.

  2. Keep the chicken hot while you thicken the sauce.

  3. Strain the sauce.

  4. Return it to the saucepan.

  5. Add salt, nutmeg, flour, and butter.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Beat the egg yolk.

  8. Stir in the cream over low heat without boiling.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through simmering in the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained sauce so it coats the chicken.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth body to the thickened sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce when gently heated with the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream over low heat without boiling. Egg yolk and cream can curdle or turn grainy if overheated. Keeping the heat low lets the yolk thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, onion, mace, lemon, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, onion, mace, lemon, nutmeg, flour. 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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