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Fricasseed Fowls or Chickens

A chicken fricassee simmered with mace, herbs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fricasseed Fowls or Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Stew the inferior joints of the chickens with mace, herbs, peppercorns, water, and salt until reduced by a third.

  2. Strain the gravy, let it cool, and skim off the fat.

Simmer the chicken

  1. Arrange the chicken pieces in a single layer and pour enough gravy to nearly cover them.

  2. Add the lemon rind and simmer gently for 30 to 45 minutes.

  3. Season with salt, pounded mace, and cayenne to taste.

Finish the sauce

  1. Thicken the sauce with arrowroot and stir in the boiling cream.

  2. Remove from heat and shake the pan while adding the beaten egg yolks mixed with cream.

  3. Gently shake the pan above the heat until the sauce is just set, avoiding boiling.

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. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Chicken + arrowroottop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and, when stewed, the flavourful gravy that forms the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and set it into a smooth, thickened texture when gently heated.
Arrowroot
Thickens the gravy into a glossy sauce without making it cloudy.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky, smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Shaking in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but if the sauce boils they curdle and turn grainy. Removing the pan from the heat and shaking it keeps the temperature low enough for a smooth, just-set sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lemon, arrowroot, cream, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lemon, arrowroot, cream, egg. 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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