Chicken and other poultry Ĭhicken fricassee has been described as "a standard old-fashioned American dish". Fricassee of cold roast beef was among the recipes published in the popular women's magazine Godey's Lady Book during the American Civil War. In the early 19th-century cookery book A New System of Domestic Cookery by Maria Rundell, a fricassee of cold roast beef is made with very thinly sliced beef cooked in butter and broth with parsley and an onion, the sauce thickened with egg yolks, wine and vinegar. Cookbook author James Peterson notes that some modernized versions of the recipe call for the meat to be thoroughly browned before braising, but the classical version requires that both meat and vegetables remain with no caramelization. In a fricassee, cut-up meat is first sauteed (but not browned), then liquid is added and it is simmered to finish cooking. Julia Child in Mastering the Art of French Cooking describes it as "halfway between a sauté and a stew" in that a sauté has no liquid added, while a stew includes liquid from the beginning. Broth made with chicken necks or feet, or used to boil meats, or similar is simmered with herbs and lemon peel, then thickened with cream (or egg yolk), flour and butter to make into a sauce. The early 19th-century cookery book A New System of Domestic Cookery by Maria Rundell says white sauce can be used for fricassee of "Fowls, Rabbits, White Meat Fish, of Vegetables". In Martha Washington's recipe for chicken fricassee, the chicken was stewed in gravy, then a sauce was made with cream and egg yolks. By the 18th century the egg yolks had started to be replaced by flour in English and American cuisines. Įnglish fricassees were usually thickened with egg yolks, while Italian fricassea used a mixture of lemon and egg yolks. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier describes "a lusty Fricassie" in his late 17th-century Travels through Turkey to Persia. The 16th-century cookery book The Good Huswifes Jewell contains "For fricasies of a lambes head and purtenance." The perfect English cooke contains instructions to prepare a "Fregacy of Lamb or Veal".
In 1490, it is first referred to specifically as "friquassée" in the print edition of Le Viandier.
A meatball and mushroom fricassee served with riceīy the general description of frying and then braising in liquid, there are recipes for fricassee as far back as the earliest version of the medieval French cookbook Le Viandier, circa 1300.