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Fricasseed Chicken

A chicken fricassee made by boiling, thickening with butter and flour, and optionally frying.

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 Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the chicken

  1. Cut up the chicken and boil skin side down in a small quantity of water.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and onion if desired; stew gently until tender.

  3. Remove the chicken and add cream or milk to the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour mixed smoothly together.

  5. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes, add chopped parsley, and serve hot.

Alternative: fry and thicken

  1. Alternatively, fry the chicken brown in hot lard, then remove it.

  2. Add flour to the pan, cook for a minute while stirring, then add water or stock and vinegar.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, boil, strain, and add the beaten yolk of an egg before pouring over 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter and flour
Together they thicken the gravy, giving it body and a smooth, coating texture.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture, mellowing the gravy into a creamy sauce.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity that brightens the rich, creamy gravy.
Egg yolk (in the method)
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding smoothness and richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour. Flour must be mixed smoothly into butter or cooked in fat before liquid is added, then boiled. Otherwise it forms lumps and the gravy stays floury-tasting instead of silky.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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