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Fricasseed Chicken

A stew of chicken, salt pork, onion, parsley, and milk, finished with eggs, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken in salt water for 30 minutes.

  2. Place the chicken in a pot with enough cold water to cover it.

  3. Add the salt pork to the pot.

  4. Cover the pot.

  5. Heat slowly.

Stew and make the gravy

  1. Stew for over an hour until the chicken is tender.

  2. Add the chopped onion, parsley, and pepper.

  3. Stir in the milk, beaten eggs, and flour.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Add the butter and mix well.

Serve

  1. Arrange the chicken in a deep dish.

  2. Pour the gravy over the chicken.

  3. Serve.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stewing liquid and gravy.
Eggs
Thicken the milk-based gravy as they set with gentle heat.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by binding with the liquid as it comes to a boil.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the gravy and adds richness.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to finish the gravy.

The step that matters

Bringing the gravy to a boil after adding the eggs. Eggs can curdle or scramble if the mixture boils too hard or too fast. Keeping the heat controlled helps the gravy stay smooth while the flour and egg thicken it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, parsley, pepper, milk, egg, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, parsley, pepper, milk, egg, flour. 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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