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Fricassee of Chickens, a LA Royale

A chicken fricassee with wine, consommé, mushrooms, crayfish tails, cock's combs, pimentos, and lobster coral, finished with lemon and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chickens, a LA Royale

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the chicken

  1. Heat the salad oil with the bay leaf, thyme, shallots, mignonette pepper, salt, nutmeg, garlic, and pimentos in a sauté pan.

  2. Add the chicken pieces and cook over medium heat until firm but not browned.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour and toss for 3 minutes.

  4. Pour in the wine and consommé, stir, and bring to a boil.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming off any oil that rises to the surface.

  6. Drain the chicken and reserve the sauce in a separate pan to reduce.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the sauce with mushrooms, crayfish tails, and cock's combs.

  2. Warm the fricassee and stir in the lemon juice and butter mixed with pounded pimentos and lobster coral before serving.

  3. Serve garnished with a border of raviolis.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which firms as it cooks and flavours the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the wine and consommé into a smooth sauce when tossed into the hot oil.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish when stirred into the warm sauce.
Chablis or sauterne wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and its liquid helps build the sauce.
White consommé
Supplies savoury body and liquid for the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Sprinkle in the flour and toss for 3 minutes. Cooking flour in fat for a few minutes removes its raw taste and helps it thicken smoothly. Adding liquid before the flour is cooked can leave lumps and a pasty flavour.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, thyme, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, clove, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, thyme, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, clove, flour. 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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