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Mr. Demorest’s Chicken Fricassee

A stew of chicken and salt pork thickened with flour and milk, flavored with herbs and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mr. Demorest’s Chicken Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Joint the chickens, dividing the wings, sides, breasts, and backbones.

  2. Soak the chicken pieces in clear water for 30 minutes.

Simmer

  1. Transfer the chicken to a stew pan with the salt pork and barely cover with water.

  2. Simmer on low heat for 3 hours until tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the chicken and mix the flour with cold milk until smooth.

  2. Add the herbs and stir gradually into the cooking liquid, stirring until it boils.

  3. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Return the chicken to the pan and let it boil briefly in the gravy.

  5. Garnish with the green tops of celery 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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the cooking liquid and chicken.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy when stirred and boiled.
Cold milk
Mixed with flour first so the thickener disperses without lumps, and adds richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and milk into the hot liquid. Adding the flour mixture gradually while stirring prevents lumps, because flour clumps when it hits hot liquid all at once. Boiling afterward lets the starch thicken the gravy fully.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, flour, milk, sage, thyme, 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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