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Fricassee of Chickens, a LA Komaine

A French-style chicken fricassee cooked with oil, herbs, wine, consommé, and seafood, finished with lemon, butter, and pimentos.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chickens, a LA Komaine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut and trim the chickens as usual.

  2. Place the trimmed chickens in a large pan with salad oil, bay leaf, thyme, shallots, mignonette pepper, salt, nutmeg, garlic, and pimentos.

  3. Fry the chicken pieces over medium heat until firm but not browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Sprinkle in the flour and toss for 3 minutes.

  2. Add the wine and consommé, stir, and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  4. Skim off excess oil and drain the chicken pieces, reserving the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the sauce in a stewpan with mushrooms, crayfish tails, and cock's kernels.

  2. Warm the fricassee.

  3. Add lemon juice and butter mixed with pounded pimentos and lobster coral.

  4. Serve garnished with a border of raviolis.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken (in the method)
Provides the meat that is braised in the sauce until tender.
Flour
Thickens the wine and consommé into a light sauce that clings to the chicken.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it reduces during simmering.
White consommé
Supplies savoury liquid that forms the body of the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the finished sauce with fat for a smoother, rounder texture.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness that balances the richness of the sauce and butter.

The step that matters

Frying the chicken until firm but not browned. Browning builds colour and a different flavour, which this white fricassee is meant to avoid. Gentle heat firms the surface so the pieces hold their shape through the long simmer.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, clove, flour, wine):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, clove, flour, 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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