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Fricassee of Chicken

A stew of chicken, vegetables, and mushrooms simmered in stock, finished with butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, draw, and skin the chicken.

  2. Cut the chicken into joints and soak in cold water for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove chicken from water and dry with a clean cloth.

  4. Wash, scrape, and slice the carrot.

  5. Peel the onion.

  6. Wash the celery and parsley in cold water.

  7. Place the vegetables in a stewpan.

  8. Add thyme, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, and mace.

  9. Add the chicken pieces and 1½ pints of stock.

Simmer and strain

  1. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove chicken pieces, wash in cold water, and dry with a cloth.

  3. Strain the stock into a basin.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Trim the mushroom stalks, wash, and peel the mushrooms.

  2. Add mushrooms to the stewpan with a piece of butter the size of a chestnut.

  3. Squeeze in 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and add 1 tablespoon of cold water.

  4. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and transfer to a plate.

  5. Clean the stewpan and add 1 ounce of butter.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in the stock.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock mixture into a smooth sauce when cooked together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and carries the mushrooms and sauce base.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce and softens its flavour.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender texture to the finished fricassee.

The step that matters

Bring the mushrooms to a boil, then remove from heat. Mushrooms hold a lot of water and turn rubbery or grey if overcooked, so they should be heated only until just cooked through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, clove):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, clove. 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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