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A Fricassee of Fowl

A fricassee made from a young fowl simmered with onion, mushrooms, lemon, butter, flour, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Fricassee of Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Remove feathers, innards, and singe the fowl carefully with a spirit lamp.

  2. Place the fowl in a 3-quart pot and cover with warm water.

  3. Add the onion, a clove, a little salt, and parsley or bouquet garni.

  4. Skim the surface as needed.

  5. Bring the liquid to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

  6. Remove the fowl and drain for 3 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In the boiling liquid, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a sauce.

  2. Blanch the mushrooms in just enough water to cover them for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the juice of half a lemon to the sauce and strain it.

Cook and serve

  1. Cut the fowl into 10 pieces, keeping the skin on.

  2. Cook the fowl pieces in the sauce for 20 to 25 minutes.

  3. Arrange the pieces on a dish, strain the sauce over them, and garnish with mushrooms.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering in the liquid.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour, giving it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth sauce that coats the fowl.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender texture as a garnish for the finished dish.

The step that matters

Make the sauce. Flour must be cooked into the melted butter and whisked into the simmering liquid so it dissolves without lumps. Adding it too fast or without fat-coating can leave clumps, and a rough sauce won't coat the fowl evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, lemon, butter, flour, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, lemon, butter, flour, parsley. 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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