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White Fricasser

A stew of chicken pieces cooked in a white sauce of butter, flour, milk, and chicken broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

White Fricasser

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces.

  2. Stew the chicken pieces without frying for 1.5 hours, reducing the water to about 1 pint.

  3. Transfer the chicken to a hot platter.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the flour and stir constantly until smooth.

  3. Slowly pour in the milk, stirring until it boils and thickens.

  4. Add the chicken broth and 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein and body of the dish, cooked gently by stewing rather than frying.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and forms the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked in butter, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the white sauce and adds mild sweetness and richness.
Chicken broth
Adds savory depth and extra liquid to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the butter until smooth. Flour must be stirred constantly so it cooks evenly without lumps. Stirring as the milk is added and brought to a boil lets the starch swell and thicken the sauce evenly.

“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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