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Fricassee of Fowl

A buttery stew of boiled fowl pieces simmered with onions, stock, flour, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee of Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the boiled fowl into neat pieces.

  2. In a stew-pan, melt the butter.

  3. Add the onions to the melted butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the pieces of fowl to the pan.

  2. Add a little stock to the pan.

  3. Add enough flour to thicken the mixture.

  4. Stir occasionally until the mixture boils.

  5. Skim off any foam.

  6. Let the mixture simmer until the fowl is tender.

  7. Mix the cream or milk with the egg yolks.

  8. Add the cream-egg mixture to the pan.

  9. Stir over low heat, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Remove the fowl pieces from the pan.

  2. Arrange the fowl pieces in a pyramid on a dish.

  3. Serve.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and gives a rich flavour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the fowl.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce's flavour.
Button onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the cream-egg mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated but curdle and turn grainy if they boil. Keeping the heat low and not letting the sauce boil keeps it smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg. 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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