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Fricassee of Chickens with Mushrooms

A chicken fricassee with mushrooms, butter, flour, consommé, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chickens with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Singe the chickens.

  2. Remove the insides.

  3. Chop off the feet, pinions, legs, wings, and breast.

  4. Boil the legs and pinions in salted water for 2 minutes. Remove the legs and pinions from the heat.

  5. Add the breast and wings to the water.

  6. Let the breast and wings cool.

  7. Trim the chicken pieces and remove the skin.

  8. Place the trimmed pieces on a plate.

Make the sauce

  1. Sauté chopped mushrooms, ham, and onion in butter until frying.

  2. Stir in flour.

  3. Gradually mix in consommé and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the chicken to the sauce.

  5. Cook until done.

  6. Remove the chicken from the sauce.

  7. Reduce the sauce like béchamel.

  8. Add cream and pass through a tammy.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the sauce with a few small stewed mushrooms.

  2. Heat the mixture.

  3. Mix in the egg yolk and a little cream gently.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that is poached and then served in the sauce.
Butter
Fats the pan so the mushrooms, ham, and onion soften and brown lightly.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and consommé.
Consommé
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory flavor.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce gently when stirred in off the heat.
Cream
Adds richness and smooths the texture of the sauce.

The step that matters

Mix in the egg yolk and a little cream gently. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat; if the sauce boils after it is added, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy, so it should be stirred in gently and kept below a boil.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, ham, butter, flour, 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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