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Fricasseed Chickens

A pastry filled with minced chicken fricassée and optional mushrooms, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Trim the skin from the chicken.

  2. Mince the meat finely.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  4. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  5. Gradually add the chicken stock.

  6. Cook until the sauce thickens.

  7. Stir in the cream or milk.

  8. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  9. Remove from heat.

  10. Mix in the minced chicken and mushrooms if using.

  11. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble the pies

  1. Roll out the pastry to ⅛ inch thick.

  2. Cut the pastry into 2-inch rounds.

  3. Place a spoonful of the mixture on half of the rounds.

  4. Moisten the edges with water.

  5. Cover with the other rounds, pressing to seal.

  6. Brush the tops with beaten egg.

  7. Place on a greased baking sheet.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the pastry is golden and cooked through.

  2. Serve hot, scraping off any excess pastry from the bottoms.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced chicken meat
Forms the savoury body of the filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour in the filling.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, sliceable sauce.
Chicken stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury chicken flavour of the sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the sauce.
Egg
Brushed on the tops to promote browning and a golden shine.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before filling the pastry. A hot filling softens the raw pastry, making it tear or greasy and preventing it from sealing well. Cooling the sauce firms it, so the pies hold their shape and bake evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, butter, flour, cream, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, butter, flour, cream, pepper, mushroom. 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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