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Fowl Fricasseed

A stew of fowl pieces cooked with aromatics, stock, and a beurre manié sauce, finished with mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fowl Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Draw the fowl and cut it into small joints.

  2. Place the fowl in a stewpan with shallot, bacon rind or ham, cloves, carrots, and bouquet garni.

  3. Pour enough stock to barely cover the fowl into the stewpan.

  4. Add pepper and salt to the stew.

  5. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  6. Drain the stock into a basin.

  7. Let the drained stock cool to remove grease.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Wash and peel the mushrooms.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a separate stewpan with butter, lemon juice, and cold water.

  3. Boil the mushrooms once.

  4. Turn the boiled mushrooms onto a plate.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan.

  2. Mix in flour to make a roux.

  3. Add chicken stock and mushroom trimmings to the stewpan.

  4. Simmer 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the stock.
Shallot
Adds savory aroma to the stock as it simmers.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to make a roux.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a tender texture to the dish.

The step that matters

Simmer the fowl gently. Boiling makes the meat tough and cloudy the stock. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften slowly while keeping the fowl tender and the stock clear.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, ham, clove, carrot, parsley, thyme, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, ham, clove, carrot, parsley, thyme, pepper. 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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