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Fricassee of Chickens, with Mushrooms, Etc.

A stew of chicken pieces simmered with carrots, onions, celery, and mushrooms, thickened with a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chickens, with Mushrooms, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Singe the chickens over a charcoal flame and cut them into small pieces.

  2. Remove the wings and legs, then cut the back and breast into pieces.

  3. Soak the chicken pieces in tepid water for 10 minutes, squeezing to extract blood.

Stew and thicken

  1. In a stewpan, layer thinly sliced carrot, onion, and celery.

  2. Add the chicken pieces, season with salt and pepper, and cover with broth or water.

  3. Cook gently until the chicken is tender, then add mushrooms and thicken with a butter‑flour mixture.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through slow, gentle cooking.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the cooking liquid and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid when cooked with butter into a roux.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and texture to the stewed chicken.

The step that matters

Cook gently until the chicken is tender. Gentle heat keeps the meat moist and tender, while a rolling boil toughens muscle proteins and can make the sauce cloudy.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, onion, celery, mushroom, pepper, butter. 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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