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Fricassee of Chickens with Peas

A stew of chicken fillets and peas cooked in butter, finished with lemon juice and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,005 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chickens with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stew the young peas until tender.

  2. Cut out the fillets from the chickens.

  3. Clarify some butter in a cutlet pan.

Cook the fillets

  1. Lay the fillets in the butter and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Cook over medium heat for 1 minute, shaking and turning to avoid browning.

  3. Drain the fillets and arrange them on a hot dish in a star shape.

  4. Blanch and fry the chicken livers in butter for 2 minutes, then garnish around the chicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter sauce and squeeze in the lemon juice just before serving.

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. Peas + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,005 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Peas + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,528 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken fillets
Provide the main lean meat, which turns tender and white when cooked gently in butter.
Butter
Carries the heat for gentle cooking and adds richness and a rounded flavour to the chicken.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a soft, tender texture to the dish.
Butter sauce
Adds moisture and richness to the finished chicken.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the fillets over medium heat for 1 minute. Shaking and turning keep the butter from browning and the chicken delicate. Too much heat or time can toughen the meat and colour it, changing the pale, gentle texture this dish depends on.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, chicken, butter, sauce, liver):

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Pumpkinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, chicken, butter, sauce, liver. 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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