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Fricasseed Chicken

A stew of chicken with salt pork, onions, parsley, pepper, milk, 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

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

  2. Place the chicken in a pot with enough cold water to cover it and add the salt pork.

Stew

  1. Cover and heat slowly, then stew for over an hour until tender.

  2. Add the chopped onion, parsley, and pepper when the chicken is tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Stir in the milk, beaten eggs, and flour, then bring to a boil.

  2. Add the butter, arrange the chicken in a serving dish, and pour the gravy over it.

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

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken the gravy as they set with heat and add richness.
Flour
Flour thickens the milk and stock into a smooth gravy.
Milk
Milk forms the creamy base of the gravy and softens its flavor.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the pot as the chicken stews.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich, smooth finish to the gravy.

The step that matters

Bringing the gravy to a boil after adding eggs. Eggs can curdle or scramble if the mixture gets too hot too fast. Keeping the heat controlled while the flour and eggs thicken keeps the gravy smooth.

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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