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Chicken Fricassee

A slow‑cooked chicken stew with butter, flour, broth, onions, mushrooms, and a thickened sauce of egg yolks and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Prepare the chicken by cutting each leg and wing into two pieces at the joint and cutting the back in two.

  2. Place the chicken pieces in boiling water for 1–2 minutes, then drain.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until bubbling.

  2. Add the water or broth, parsley, nutmeg, onions, salt, and pepper, then add the chicken.

  3. Cover closely and simmer slowly, shaking occasionally. Add more broth if the sauce dries out.

  4. Cook for 1 hour for young chicken or 2 hours for older chicken.

  5. Remove the chicken and keep it warm. Strain the sauce if desired.

  6. Return the sauce to the stewpan, add mushrooms and their liquor, and boil for 1 minute.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the milk, then stir into the sauce off the heat.

  2. Return the saucepan to the stove and stir until thickened, but do not boil.

  3. Arrange the chicken pieces on a serving dish as desired.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Long gentle simmering makes the meat tender and flavours the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth base for the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the finished sauce, giving it a silky body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and forms the roux with the flour.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and meaty texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce boils after they are added, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, onion, 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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