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To Fricassee a Chicken with White Sauce

A chicken fricassee made with butter, flour, white pepper, lemon peel, nutmeg, mace, salt, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Fricassee a Chicken with White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Parboil the chicken joints, liver, and gizzard until partially cooked, then remove the skin.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour to thicken a little of the cooking liquid.

  2. Heat the mixture and add the chicken, white pepper, lemon peel, nutmeg, mace, and salt.

  3. Boil for about 20 minutes, then remove from heat and discard the lemon peel and mace.

  4. Gradually stir in the cream and beaten egg yolks, heating gently without 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth white sauce when cooked with butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the finished sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce gently when heated without boiling.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the cream and beaten egg yolks, heating gently without boiling.. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce boils, the proteins scramble and the sauce turns grainy or curdled. Adding the yolks slowly, with the sauce warm rather than hot, keeps it smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, butter, flour, lemon, nutmeg, mace):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, butter, flour, lemon, nutmeg, 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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