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Chicken Fricassee

A stew of chicken, ham, shallots, mace, pepper, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,898 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, place the cut-up chickens, ham, shallots, and mace.

  2. Season the chickens with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add a little water to the skillet.

  4. Cook until the chickens are about half done.

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. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Chicken + shallottop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

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

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as the meat cooks.
Ham
Adds salty, savory, cured-meat flavor that seasons the chicken as it cooks.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma and flavor that mellows during cooking.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the chicken.

The step that matters

Cook until the chickens are about half done. Stopping at about half done means the chicken is only partly cooked, so the rest of the cooking must be finished carefully. Cooking too hard or too long toughens the proteins and dries the meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, shallot, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, shallot, 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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