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White Fricassee of Chicken

A white chicken fricassee made with butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

White Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces.

  2. Boil the chicken pieces until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a separate pan.

  2. Stir in flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add milk to the roux.

  4. Stir until smooth.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the cooked chicken to the sauce.

  2. Simmer for a few minutes.

  3. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through boiling and is the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and forms the fat base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by forming a roux with the butter when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, which thickens as the roux hydrates and heats.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the starch dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy. Stirring until smooth ensures the flour is fully hydrated and the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, milk, 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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