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Fricassee of Chicken

A chicken fricassée served over brown rice with lettuce, bread, prune jelly, and custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Fricassee of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces and brown in oleomargarine.

  2. Add water to cover and simmer until tender.

  3. Remove chicken and strain the broth.

  4. Thicken the broth with a little flour if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve the chicken with the broth over brown rice.

  2. Garnish with hearts of lettuce dressed in French dressing.

  3. Serve with rice bread, prune jelly, and custard sauce on the side.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Lettuce + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Sauce + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and, as it simmers, flavors the broth.
Oleomargarine
Fat that browns the chicken pieces and adds richness.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the broth into a smoother sauce when used.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender. Simmering gently in covered water breaks down chicken connective tissue slowly. Boiling hard toughens the meat and clouds the broth, so keep it at a low simmer until fork-tender.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice bread, sauce, molasses, rice):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice bread, sauce, molasses, rice. 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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