I’m SO excited about this one!!! I’ve been wanting to do a fricassee receipt for quite some time. It was one of my favorite dishes to cook as a Pilgrim.
This particular challenge is to pick a dish referenced in literature. But with so many culinary dishes in literature (in fact whole cookbooks base on a book or series of books) I didn’t even know where to start. But I’ve been reading the Outlander series, of which I’m currently reading the sixth book, “A Breath of Snow And Ashes”. And, at the time I was also trying to think of what receipt I would do for this challenge, I came upon this passage at the beginning of Chapter 21.
“Mrs. Bug had made a chicken fricassee for supper, but that wasn’t sufficient to account for the air of suppressed excitement that Bree and Roger brought with them when they came in. They were both smiling, her cheeks were flushed, and his eyes as bright as hers.” Gabaldon,Diana A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Chapter 21
I knew once I read this that I would be using this particular quote. Because, like I said earlier, I’ve been looking for an excuse to make a chicken fricassee! Nothing is quite like a fricassee sauce! Creamy, tangy with a fresh note from the parsley! And it goes well with any white meat. In fact fricassee is more of a genera of cooking than just one particular recipe. Chicken, rabbit, turkey, eel, and most fish are recommended through the centuries of fricassee recipes. It makes me realize I should do a comparison of them all… but for now, to this particular challenge!
A Frickasie.
Take ye fowls, cut them in pieces and clean them. Season with pepper and salt, a little mace, nutmeg, cloves, some parsley, a bit of onion. Let them lay two hours, then flour them well, fry in sweet butter, hot before you put them in. Fry a fine brown. Wash ye pan and put them in again with a pint of gravy. Let them swimyer in ye grazy. Take the yolks of three eggs with a little grated nutmeg and a little juice of lemon, and two spoonfuls of wine. Shake it over the fire until it is as thick as cream, pour over ye frickasie, and so serve it to ye table hot.”
Mrs. John Burroughs, Philadelphia PA, 1743
Cited in: Smith, Jacqueline Harrison. Famous Old Receipts: A Compilation. (1923)
This particular receipt was one that I found a few weeks ago and recognized it to be close to the fricassee I remember making the Pilgrim Village years ago. I also was intrigued by the marinating process that happens to the chicken before cooking.
Let’s get cooking!
In typical 18th century receipt fashion, they didn’t specify size, type or even species of fowl (since in the 18th century “fowls” could be referencing chicken, duck, goose, turkey, rabbits or really anything that would be found in the poultry market). So I went with a 4 lb young chicken.
I then proceeded to cut them into 8 pieces, mainly the legs, thighs, wings and breasts. All that was discarded was the innards and backbone, which all make an incredible broth if saved! (I, sadly, still have too much frozen chicken broth and my husband would be quite angry if I took up any more of his ice cream space).
Now, onto the marinade. It’s not really like a typical marinade that is done with vinegar, oil, and assorted seasonings. And, honestly, with only two hours to sit, I thought it would be quite weak in flavor. But I gathered all the components (parsley, onion, mace (the outer part of the nutmeg), nutmeg, cloves, salt and pepper) and proceeded to chop and grind everything down so that it would mix well with the raw chicken.
Voila! I will say I didn’t put “a little” parsley, or “a little” onion, in this bowl. I love both of those flavors so “a little” just doesn’t compute. It’s like telling me a dish only needs one clove of garlic. Right, 8 cloves of garlic it is! (I wish I could have put garlic in this one, but the 18th century English don’t seem to like it all that much.)
I covered it, and into the fridge it went for two hours. In the mean time I was very constructive with my time, building a Lego space ship and singing along to the “Lego Movie” with my son.
TWO HOURS LATER…
I took the bowl out of the fridge and opened up the lid to an incredible smell of onion and spices, with a hint of parsley. Now the instructions don’t say to wash the pieces off, so I brushed away the larger bits of parsley and onion, taking special care to remove the whole cloves (that would be VERY unpleasant to bite into). I then put it in a tray with some all-purpose flour. My personal inclination would be to season it with salt and pepper, but I was trying to stay as close to the receipt as possible… this time at least.
I then repeated the dredging process for all the pieces of chicken, taking care to shake off the excess flour. But I caution you on being too exuberant with the process, as I was, or you’ll end up dumping some of it on the floor, as I did. Never fails!
As I was dredging, and making a general mess, I put a few tablespoons of “sweet” butter into my pan. “Sweet” meaning that it was freshly made and wasn’t packed in salt. You can just use unsalted butter. I did add a little olive oil because I feared, with my “pipping hot or stone cold” electric stove-top settings, that I would burn the butter before the pieces of chicken were brown.
Once the butter was melted and beginning to froth, I added the first batch of pieces. I didn’t want to put them all in, as I wanted some nice browning and crispy bits on the outside. And if I crowded the pan too much I wouldn’t get that. At this point the smell was INCREDIBLE!!! All of those marinade spices and the onion just filled the kitchen and living room, causing my husband to look up from his reading to remark that it smells good! YES!
Once the first batch was done I started with the 2nd batch. Browning away, getting a nice golden brown (though, by no means was this chicken fully cooked yet).
Once the second batch was done, I set it aside on a plate and proceed to clean out the pan (mainly just rinsing it with water and wiping it down with a paper towel). It may seem counter intuitive, but honestly the butter was really on the verge of burning and probably wouldn’t bring an appetizing flavor to the dish.
Then I put the pan back on the heat, cranked it up to high, and heated up a pint (2 cups) of “gravy”. Now, when I first read gravy in these early receipts I always envisioned the gravy on a turkey dinner at Thanksgiving. But, as I came to find out, 18th century “gravy” is really any sort of broth, pan drippings, or actual gravy that has a great amount of flavor. So, for my 2 cups of gravy, I used my homemade chicken broth. But really any box type of chicken broth will do just fine!
Once the broth came to a boil I added the crispy pieces back into the pan (very sad that all the wonderful crispyness would be lost) and covered it. I turned down the heat and let them “swimyer in ye grazy” for about 20 minutes. And no, that’s not a typo.
While they simmered I started to put together the components of the sauce. Mainly eggs (the thickener), lemon juice (the bright, tart flavor) and nutmeg (the universal 18th century flavor). I personally didn’t have a bottle of wine open, and I didn’t want to open one just for two spoonfuls, though I could see the appeal of having a glass of wine with this meal. I, instead, juiced the whole lemon rather than half of it.
I beat the egg yolks, lemon juice and nutmeg together until it started to emulsify, which is a real technical term for “it looks lighter and creamier”. Now here’s where the receipt is a bit vague. It says to “…Shake it over the fire until it is as thick as cream…” but, if I was just to do that to the egg/lemon/nutmeg mixture all you’d get is a bit of lemony scrambled egg. So, by deduction, I concluded that the egg mixture needed to go into the leftover broth, as a thickening agent and as a fresh flavor punch!
So, having decided this, I removed the cooked pieces of chicken from the pan, and proceeded to temper the egg/lemon/nutmeg mixture with the hot broth. Meaning I added a little broth to the eggs and beat them till the temperature of the eggs was the same as the broth (hence not scrambling the eggs). A few spoonfuls did the trick. Then I poured that mixture into the rest of the broth, whisked as fast a possible and prayed it would come together. And, by miracles of miracles, it did!!! A wonderfully thick, creamy, tart sauce came together after a few minutes of whisking. To say I was excited was an understatement. Let’s just say I startled my family with my shout of success!
Once the sauce was thick enough I poured it directly over the chicken pieces. Oh, be still my heart! It looked so beautiful! And it was, at this point, that I realized I forgot to leave some parsley aside to put over the top.
So, the moment of truth! The TASTE TEST!
As you can see, I served this up as dinner for my family, which was a bit delayed from all my picture taking and general awe over what I had made. I knew I would love this from the start. The combination of the well seasoned chicken with the creamy and tart sauce. It hits all the taste buds.
But, now the time had come for my greatest critics (my family!) to tell me what they thought….
I am pleased to report this dish is HUSBAND APPROVED!!! He even gave it a higher recognition by asking when I would make this dish again!
And my efforts were doubly approved by my picky 4 year old, who even ate a piece and gave a thumbs up before scarfing down his mashed potatoes.
This is something I would certainly make again! And maybe, with a different type of fowl…