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Fricasseed Ohicken

A chicken fricassee made by frying chicken pieces and simmering them in a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Ohicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the cut-up chicken in cold water with a little coarse sea salt for a short while.

  2. Remove the chicken from the water, wipe the pieces dry, and dredge them in flour.

  3. Fry the chicken in hot oil until golden brown on both sides.

  4. Remove the chicken and keep it warm.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. If there's too much grease in the pan, pour some off.

  2. Add ½ pint of cream or rich milk to the pan, season with pepper and salt.

  3. Thicken the sauce with 2 tablespoons of softened butter mixed with 2 tablespoons of flour.

  4. Serve the chicken with the sauce and garnish with chopped parsley if 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter 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; frying in seasoned flour gives it a golden, crisp coating.
Flour
Coats the chicken so it browns in the pan, and thickens the sauce with butter.
Cream or rich milk
Forms the body of the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and combined with flour it thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the butter and flour mixture. Flour mixed with softened fat, added to the warm liquid, is a roux-style paste that dissolves smoothly and thickens evenly. Adding the flour straight to hot liquid tends to form lumps, so the paste should be whisked in gradually.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, cream, pepper, butter):

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

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