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Chieken-fricassée, German Fashion

A German-style chicken fricassée with vegetables, spices, aromatics, broth, morels, sweetbreads, crayfish tails, livers, and crops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Chieken-fricassée, German Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Singe, draw, and truss the chickens.

  2. Place them in a stewpan with vegetables, spices, and aromatics.

  3. Moisten with broth and boil on moderate heat.

  4. Once cooked, strain the broth through a cloth.

Assemble and make the sauce

  1. Carve each chicken into eight pieces and place in a stewpan.

  2. Add morels, sweetbreads, crayfish tails, livers, and crops.

  3. Prepare a simple white sauce with the cooking stock.

  4. Stir the sauce over heat until boiling, then add parsley.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which cooks gently in broth until tender.
Morels
Add earthy, savoury flavour and a distinctive chewy texture to the dish.
Sweetbreads
Contribute a soft, creamy texture and a delicate, rich flavour.
Crayfish tails
Add sweet, delicate seafood flavour and a firm, tender bite.
White sauce (in the method)
Adds body and a smooth, creamy coating that binds the pieces together.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over heat until boiling. Flour-thickened white sauce must be stirred constantly as it heats; otherwise starch settles and scorches, and lumps form, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, thyme, parsley, crayfish, liver):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, thyme, parsley, crayfish, liver. 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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