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Baked Hen Fricassee

A baked hen cooked with milk or water, browned in fat and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Baked Hen Fricassee

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Roll each piece of chicken in flour.

  2. Drop the pieces into piping hot fat and brown on both sides quickly.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the browned chicken in a casserole or baking pan, fitting them close together.

  2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour enough milk or water over the chicken to nearly cover it.

  4. Cover the pan.

  5. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until the meat is tender and shows signs of leaving the bone, about 1.5 hours.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Hen
Provides the meat that becomes tender and moist during slow braising.
Flour
Forms a coating that browns in the hot fat and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Milk
Braising liquid that keeps the meat moist and gives the sauce a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and extra fat if the hen is lean.

The step that matters

Browning the floured chicken in hot fat. Searing quickly in very hot fat sets a crisp, golden crust and builds flavor through browning. Fat that is not hot enough lets the flour absorb grease and turn soggy instead of browning.

“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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