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Fricassee of Chickens

A stew of chicken simmered with herbs, spices, and a thickened sauce made from flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Fricassee of Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken in a small quantity of water until cooked through.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Cut the chicken into pieces.

Make the fricassee

  1. Place the pieces in a saucepan with the reserved boiling liquid, veal or mutton, onion, mace, lemon peel, white pepper, and sweet herbs.

  2. Simmer until the chicken is tender, keeping it warm.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid back into the saucepan.

  4. Add salt, nutmeg, flour, and butter.

  5. Thicken the sauce over low heat, stirring until smooth.

  6. Serve over the chicken.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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 in the seasoned liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the thickened sauce.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce over low heat, stirring until smooth. Flour thickens liquid only when it is heated gently and stirred constantly. High heat or too little stirring can scorch the flour or leave lumps, so the sauce turns grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, onion, mace, lemon, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, onion, mace, lemon, parsley, thyme. 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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