Skip to main content
Main

Fricassee De Poulet H. LA Bourdois

A French chicken fricassee with butter, mushrooms, parsley, green onions, and a sauce thickened with egg yolks and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 De Poulet H. LA Bourdois

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Wash the chicken pieces in lukewarm water.

  2. Blanch the chicken pieces in boiling water.

  3. Drain the chicken and place it in cold water.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt ½ cup of butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add mushrooms, parsley, and green onions to the butter.

  3. Lay the chicken pieces in the pan.

  4. Dust the chicken with flour and salt.

  5. Moisten the chicken with hot water.

  6. Boil for over 30 minutes, skimming occasionally.

  7. Remove the chicken and strain the sauce over it in another saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Keep the chicken warm in a bain-marie until serving.

  2. Thicken the sauce with beaten egg yolks mixed with milk or cream, then bring the sauce to a boil.

  3. Add lemon juice and chopped parsley to taste.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it simmers.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded flavour to the sauce and chicken.
Flour
Starch that dusts the chicken and helps thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Their proteins set when heated, thickening the sauce and adding richness.
Milk or cream
Adds smoothness and body to the sauce, softening its flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set when heated and thicken the sauce. If the yolks get too hot, they scramble and curdle, so keep the heat gentle once they are added.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, mushroom, onion, flour, egg, milk):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, mushroom, onion, flour, egg, milk. 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.

More chicken fricassee recipes

with Mushrooms 6White 6Cold 4with Tomato Sauce 3 See all 369 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes