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Fricassee of Chickens, a LA Romaine

A chicken fricassee cooked with wine, consommé, mushrooms, crayfish, and pimentos, finished with lemon juice and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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 Romaine

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and simmer

  1. Heat the salad oil with the bay leaf, thyme, shallots, mignonette pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, garlic, and pimentos in a sauté pan.

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

  3. Sprinkle flour over the chicken and toss the chicken for 3 minutes.

  4. Add the wine and consommé and stir the mixture.

  5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat.

  6. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  7. Skim off any oil that rises to the surface.

  8. Drain the chicken.

  9. Reserve the sauce in a separate pan to reduce.

Finish and serve

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

  2. Warm the fricassee.

  3. Stir in lemon juice and butter mixed with 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
Provides the main protein; gentle simmering in the sauce keeps the meat tender and moist.
Flour
Dusted over the chicken and cooked into the wine and consommé, it thickens the sauce.
Chablis or sauterne wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it simmers and reduces.
White consommé
Forms the savoury liquid base that the chicken simmers in.
Butter
Enriches the finished sauce, adding richness and a glossy texture when stirred in.

The step that matters

Simmer the chicken gently after adding the wine and consommé. A hard boil toughens chicken proteins and can break the flour-thickened sauce, so keep it at a gentle simmer for the full 30 minutes.

Swap the garlic

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

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

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