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Brown Fricassee of Chickens or Babbits

A browned chicken or rabbit fricassee with truffles, morels, mushrooms, egg balls, and stock, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Brown Fricassee of Chickens or Babbits

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Fry the chicken or rabbit pieces in pure lard until light brown.

  2. Drain them with a cloth and place in a stewpan.

Stew and serve

  1. Add blanched truffles, morels, stock or gravy, button mushrooms, and egg balls.

  2. Stew gently until cooked through, seasoning to taste.

  3. Serve hot, optionally garnished with fried oysters.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Truffle + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through gentle stewing.
Pure lard
Fat for frying that browns the meat's surface and adds richness.
Morels
Contribute earthy, savoury flavour to the stewing liquid.
Good stock or gravy
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens and flavours the meat as it stews.
Egg balls
Add soft, tender body to the stew as they cook in the liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently until cooked through. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and moist; a hard boil toughens muscle proteins and can break up delicate ingredients like egg balls.

“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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