Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
White Fricassee of Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Cut off the wings and legs of the fowl, dividing the legs into second joints and drumsticks.
Cut off the back and divide it, leaving the breast whole.
Wash the pieces thoroughly and soak in warm water for 20 minutes (30 minutes if the fowl is old). Drain.
Cook the chicken
Place the fowl pieces in a stewpan and cover with 5 cups of boiling water. Boil quickly and skim.
Add the onion and celery or parsley. Cover tightly and stew slowly for 1.5 hours.
Season with salt and white pepper. Simmer for an additional 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender.
Make the sauce and serve
Remove 2 cups of the chicken broth and strain it into a small saucepan.
Mix the flour with 4 tablespoons of milk until smooth, then stir in ¾ cup of milk.
Heat the broth in the small saucepan until boiling, then stir in the flour mixture. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Adjust thickness with more broth if needed.
Place the chicken breast on a hot platter and arrange the other pieces around it. Pour half the sauce over the chicken and serve the rest in a gravy boat.
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.
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Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,905 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together853 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together32,460 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Fowl
- Provides the meat and, through slow stewing, the broth that becomes the sauce.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the milk and broth into a smooth sauce as its starch gelatinizes when heated.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and body to the sauce, rounding out the broth's flavor.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling broth. Flour lumps if added to hot liquid without first being smoothed in cold milk. Constant stirring while it cooks disperses the starch so the sauce thickens evenly.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, flour, milk, sauce):
- Capersfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, flour, milk, sauce. 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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