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Chaud-Froid De Poulets Aux Truffes

A chilled chicken fricassee with truffle, cockscomb, and aspic sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Chaud-Froid De Poulets Aux Truffes

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the chicken

  1. Blanch the chickens in water, then remove and drain them.

  2. In a pot over moderate heat, toss the chickens with flour until lightly coated.

  3. Add the blanching liquid, season with salt, nutmeg, parsley, chives, thyme, bay leaf, basil, onions, and mushrooms.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming as needed.

  5. Remove the chickens and let them drain in a covered stewpan.

Make the sauce

  1. Reduce the sauce, then stir in the egg yolks and bring to a gentle boil.

  2. Strain the sauce and let it cool, then mix a third of it with the fricassee.

  3. Chill the fricassee for 30 minutes.

Plate and serve

  1. Plate the dish, topping with the truffle and cockscomb.

  2. Mix the remaining sauce with melted aspic and pour over the fricassee.

  3. Surround with chopped aspic and a border of jelly croutons. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat for the fricassee, which is cooked gently until tender.
Flour
Lightly coats the chicken, helping thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they gently heat.
Aspic
Sets into a gel that gives the cold dish its glossy, firm body.
Truffle
Adds a strong earthy aroma that defines the dish's flavor.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor to the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if the sauce boils hard they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep it at a gentle boil only, stirring constantly, so the sauce stays smooth and silky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, nutmeg, parsley, chive, thyme, basil):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, nutmeg, parsley, chive, thyme, basil. 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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