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Fowl Fricasseed in Oil

A stew of fowl cooked in oil with mushrooms, truffles, shallots, thyme, parsley, bay leaf, salt, sugar, lemon juice, and marsala.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Fowl Fricasseed in Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Cut the fowl into joints and soak in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Wipe the fowl dry and heat the salad oil in a stewpan.

  3. Add the fowl, mushrooms, truffles, shallot, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf to the oil.

  4. Boil quickly, then simmer until the fowl is a pale yellow color (about 45 minutes).

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, combine cleaned mushrooms, chopped shallots, and truffle with enough oil from cooking the fowl to moisten.

  2. Stir over high heat for 10 minutes, then add salt, sugar, lemon juice, and marsala.

Serve

  1. Drain the fowl on a cloth to remove excess fat, place on a hot dish, and pour the sauce over before serving.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Young fowl
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle simmering in oil.
Salad oil
Carries heat evenly during cooking and keeps the fowl moist as it simmers.
Truffles
Add a deep, earthy aroma to the fowl and the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add savoury depth and a meaty texture to the sauce.
Shallots (in the method)
Contribute a mild, sweet onion flavour that builds the base of the sauce.
Marsala
Adds a sweet, wine-based richness that deepens the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until pale yellow, not browned. Gentle simmering in oil cooks the fowl through without browning it, keeping the pale colour and delicate texture. Boiling hard first and then simmering keeps the meat moist and tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, truffle, thyme, sugar, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, truffle, thyme, sugar, lemon. 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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