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Fowl Fricasseed

A stew of young fowl with bacon, herbs, and mushrooms simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Fowl Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Draw the fowl.

  2. Cut the fowl into small, neat joints.

  3. Place the joints in a stewpan with shallot, bacon rind or ham, cloves, carrots, and bouquet garni.

  4. Pour enough stock into the stewpan to barely cover the fowl.

  5. Add pepper and salt to the stewpan.

  6. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Drain the stock into a basin.

  2. Let the drained stock cool to remove grease.

  3. Mix the melted butter smoothly with the drained stock.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash the mushrooms and peel the mushrooms.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a separate stewpan with butter, lemon juice, and cold water.

  3. Boil the mushrooms once.

  4. Turn the boiled mushrooms onto a plate.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle simmering in stock.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body when mixed into the stock.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender texture to the finished dish.
Bacon rind or ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 30 minutes. A gentle simmer keeps the fowl tender and the stock clear. Boiling hard toughens the meat and makes the liquid cloudy and greasy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, ham, clove, carrot, parsley, thyme, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, ham, clove, carrot, parsley, thyme, 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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