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Fricassee of Chicken

A chicken fricassee with a creamy sauce served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the chicken

  1. In a large stewpan, cook the trussed chicken in 1 quart of hot water over medium heat until it boils slowly.

  2. Remove any scum, then add celery, parsley, bay leaf, onion, carrot, salt, and pepper.

  3. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Test doneness with a fork.

  4. Remove the chicken, untruss, and cut into neat pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and whisk in flour for a few minutes without browning.

  2. Slowly add 1 pint of strained chicken stock and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolks, milk, melted butter, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Carefully stir the egg mixture into the hot sauce, keeping it from boiling.

  5. Add lemon juice and strain the sauce over the chicken pieces.

Serve

  1. Serve the chicken on a bed of cooked rice, pouring the sauce over it.

  2. Heat thoroughly before serving.

  3. Optionally, add sliced preserved mushrooms to the sauce for extra flavor.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers gently in water.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavor, and forms the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the egg mixture before it enters the sauce.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying its savory flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the hot sauce. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce boils, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Keep it hot but below boiling while stirring steadily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, parsley, carrot, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, parsley, carrot, pepper, butter, flour. 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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