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A 'white Fricassee

A white chicken fricassee made with chicken, veal broth, sweet herbs, mace, flour, butter, cream, egg yolk, mushrooms, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

A 'white Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken pieces in warm water to draw out the blood.

Stew and thicken

  1. In a pot, combine the chicken and veal broth (or boiling water) and stew gently with sweet herbs and mace until tender.

  2. Remove the sweet herbs from the pot.

  3. Mix flour and butter in a separate pan, then add to the pot to thicken the broth.

  4. Stir in the cream and beaten egg yolk, then add mushrooms.

  5. Keep stirring until it boils, then add lemon juice and stir to prevent curdling.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with lemon.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 through gentle stewing in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, light sauce when cooked with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the sauce and helps bind the flour.
Cream
Gives the sauce a rich, smooth texture and mellow flavour.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding body and a silky texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice after the cream and egg yolk. Egg yolk and cream can curdle when acid is added to a hot, unstable mixture. Keep stirring steadily as the sauce boils, and add the lemon juice gently so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, flour, butter, cream, egg, mushroom):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, flour, butter, cream, egg, mushroom. 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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