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Fricassee De Poulet a VAncienne

A French chicken fricassee simmered with herbs, onions, and a creamy sauce, served over mashed potatoes.

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 ↓

Fricassee De Poulet a VAncienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut each chicken into 8 pieces: 2 legs, 2 wings, 2 pieces of back, and 2 pieces of breast.

  2. Place the chicken pieces in a stewpan with warm water for 10 minutes to dislodge impurities.

  3. Drain the water, cover the chicken with cold water, and add pepper, salt, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, onion, and cloves.

  4. Simmer gently for 20 minutes, skim the surface, and remove the chicken pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Trim the chicken into neat pieces and place them in a stewpan with butter over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Add flour and mix well, then strain the stock from the chicken into the stewpan.

  3. Stir everything together and add the peeled button onions.

  4. Boil gently for nearly an hour, skimming as needed, until the sauce thickens.

  5. Mix egg yolks with milk, stir into the sauce quickly, and do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Serve by placing mashed potatoes on the bottom of a dish, arranging the chicken pieces in a pyramid, and pouring the sauce over.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and, through its stock, the flavour base of the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and gives the chicken a richer, rounded flavour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that clings to the chicken.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the sauce when stirred in gently off the boil.
Milk
Dilutes and softens the sauce, adding creaminess alongside the egg yolks.
Button onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and milk mixture. If the sauce boils after the egg yolks go in, the yolk proteins can scramble and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy. Stirring quickly and keeping it below a boil keeps it smooth and thick.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, parsley, thyme, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, parsley, thyme, onion, butter, flour. 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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