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Chickens, Fricassée Of, with Bottoms of Artichokes

A chicken fricassée cooked with artichoke bottoms, butter, broth, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and tarragon share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 60 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chickens, Fricassée Of, with Bottoms of Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chicken pieces and cook until browned on all sides, then remove the chicken and set aside.

  3. In the same skillet, add the artichoke bottoms and sauté for a few minutes.

  4. Return the chicken to the skillet, add the chicken broth, and simmer until cooked through.

  5. Stir in the heavy cream, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the sauce thickens.

  6. Serve garnished with fresh tarragon.

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. Artichoke + tarragontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Chicken + tarragontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together619 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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 browns for flavor and cooks through in the simmering broth.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the chicken and carries flavor into the sauce.
Chicken broth
Supplies the liquid that gently cooks the chicken and forms the base of the sauce.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and body, thickening the sauce as it reduces.
Artichokes
Add tender texture and a mild, earthy flavor to the dish.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until it thickens. Heavy cream thickens as water evaporates and its proteins and fats concentrate; cooking too briefly leaves a thin sauce, while boiling too hard can cause it to break or separate.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonthe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, artichoke, butter, cream, pepper. 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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