Name: Fricasseed Chicken
Ingredients: 3 small chickens; Salt; Pepper; A little mace; ½ cup water (for stewing); 2 tablespoons flour; 4 ounces butter; 1 cup milk; ⅓ cup white wine

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fricasseed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

Cut off the wings and legs of the chickens, separate the breasts from the backs, and divide the backs crosswise.
Remove the necks and clean the gizzards, then wash all parts thoroughly.
Place the cleaned parts in a saucepan, add salt, pepper, and mace, and cover with water.
Stew until tender, then remove the chicken parts from the saucepan.

Make the sauce

In a separate bowl, mix flour into butter until smooth, then add ½ cup of water and stir well.
Add the milk and bring to a boil, stirring continuously for a few minutes.
Carefully stir in the white wine to avoid curdling.
Return the chicken to the sauce, shaking the pan until heated through.
Serve with green peas, lima beans, asparagus tops, or mashed potatoes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Chicken + white winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,904 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

Chickens: Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Flour: Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Milk: Forms the creamy base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils.
White wine: Adds acidity and brightness that balance the rich cream sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the white wine. Adding acidic wine to hot milk can make it curdle. Stirring it in carefully and gently keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, butter, milk, white wine):

Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Marjoramfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, butter, milk, white wine. 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.