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Fricasseed Chickens

Chicken pieces fried and simmered in a cream sauce with nutmeg and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Fricasseed Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken pieces in cold water until the blood is drawn out.

  2. Wipe the pieces dry, season with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour.

  3. Fry the chicken in lard or batter until golden brown on both sides.

  4. Remove the chicken from the pan and keep warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Skim the fat from the frying pan, add the cream, and season with nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Thicken the sauce with a small amount of butter rolled in flour and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce around the chicken to keep it warm.

  2. Fry the parsley in lard until green and crisp, then use it to garnish the chicken.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which is browned and then served in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the chicken so it browns and helps thicken the cream sauce.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, and with flour helps it thicken.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and fat before liquid is added, or it stays floury. Bringing the sauce to a boil then activates the starch so it thickens smoothly rather than lumpy.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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