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Brown Fricassee Chicken

A stew of browned chicken pieces simmered with onions, tomatoes, herbs, and a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,077 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brown Fricassee Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and onions

  1. Heat the oil or fat in a frying pan and fry the chicken pieces until browned.

  2. In another frying pan, add the sliced onions with enough oil or fat to fry them until soft. Remove the cover to allow the onions to brown.

  3. Add the chopped tomatoes to the onions and simmer for a few minutes.

Make the gravy and cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine the fried chicken, browned onions, thyme, pepper, salt, allspice, and enough hot water to create a rich gravy.

  2. Cover and cook for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the tenderness of the chicken.

  3. If desired, add a small piece of garlic and a pinch of mace while cooking.

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. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the covered simmer in gravy.
Onions
Soften and brown to add sweetness and depth to the gravy.
Sweet oil or rendered fat
Conducts heat for browning the chicken and onions and carries flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the gravy as they simmer with the onions.

The step that matters

Browning the chicken and onions. Browning creates Maillard flavour compounds that give the gravy its depth. Pale, steamed pieces produce a flat, washed-out sauce, so brown in batches with space in the pan.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, tomato, thyme, pepper, allspice, mace):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, tomato, thyme, pepper, allspice, mace. 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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