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Fricassee of Chicken

A creamy chicken stew made with butter, flour, milk, cream, eggs, lemon, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Stir in the flour and gradually add the milk.

  3. Bring to a boil, then add the chicken and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the eggs and mix them with the cream.

  2. Add the egg and cream mixture to the dish along with pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Stir until it begins to thicken, then add lemon juice and 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 + peppertop 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they set, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the roux and adds rich flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, thickened by the flour.

The step that matters

Stir until it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set with heat, so the mixture can curdle or turn grainy if it gets too hot or is overcooked. Stir gently over moderate heat and remove it once it just thickens.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, milk, cream, pepper, egg. 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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