Why it works: Flour and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 263 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Brown Fricassee of Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Cut the chicken into joints, dividing the back and breast into two pieces each.
Soak the chicken pieces in cold, slightly salted water for 30 minutes, then wipe dry.
Roll each piece in flour.
Fry and simmer
Heat the suet dripping or lard in a pan.
Add salt and cayenne pepper, then fry the chicken pieces until brown on both sides.
Once fried, place the chicken in a saucepan and cover with boiling water, ensuring the water is an inch above the chicken.
Add the summer savory to the chicken while boiling, and remove it before making the gravy.
Pour some of the water from the frying pan into the saucepan to capture the gravy, then cover closely.
Simmer for 1.5 hours or until the chicken is tender.
Make the gravy and serve
For the gravy, take 1 pint of the broth, add cream, flour, and butter, and stir until thickened.
Serve the chicken on a hot dish, pour some gravy over it, and serve the rest in a separate dish.
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.
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Flour + summer savorytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together263 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together671 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + summer savorytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together61 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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 meat that becomes tender during slow simmering in liquid.
- Suet dripping or lard
- Fries the floured chicken, adding fat for browning and rich flavour.
- Flour
- Coats the chicken for browning and thickens the gravy.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the finished gravy.
- Cream (in the method)
- Enriches the gravy, giving it a smoother, creamier texture.
The step that matters
Browning the floured chicken. Frying until deeply brown on both sides builds flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale pieces give a weaker, less savoury gravy and dish.
Swap the summer savory
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, butter, pepper):
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
- Turmericfits about as well
- Summer savorythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, butter, 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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