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Fricassee of Spring Chickens, À LA Bourguignonne

A chicken fricassee made with spring chickens, onions, mushrooms, butter, flour, broth, white wine, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee of Spring Chickens, À LA Bourguignonne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the spring chickens into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a large pan, melt butter and sauté chopped onions until golden.

  2. Add mushrooms and cook until tender.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and stir well.

  4. Pour in chicken broth and white wine, stirring until thickened.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add chicken pieces, season with salt and pepper, and simmer until cooked through.

  2. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

  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

Spring chickens
Provides the main protein, which turns tender and fully cooked during the simmer.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the broth and wine.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the onions at the start of cooking.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and depth as they turn golden in the butter.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and soft, moist texture to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce as it reduces with the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce after adding the flour. Flour must be stirred into the fat and cooked briefly before liquid is added, otherwise it stays floury. Adding the broth and wine gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, mushroom, flour, white wine, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, mushroom, flour, white wine, parsley, pepper. 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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