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Fricassee or fricassée /ˈfrɪkəsiː/ is a method of cooking meat in which it is cut up and braised, and served with its sauce (usually a white sauce but some Spanish variations are made with a base).

Fricassee of chicken is commonly found, both in modern recipes and antique ones, but virtually all kinds of meat, poultry, seafood, and even vegetables alone, can be found in fricassee dishes.

Etymology

Fricassee is first attested in England in the mid-16th century. It is a French word, but the exact etymology is uncertain. It is theorized to be a compound of the French frire (to fry) and casser or quasser (to break in pieces).

History

By 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. In 1490, it is first referred to specifically as "friquassee" in the print edition of Le Viandier.

English fricassees were usually thickened with egg yolks, while Italian fricassea used a mixture of lemon and egg yolks. By the 18th century the egg yolks had started to be replaced by flour in English and American cuisines. In Martha Washington's recipe for chicken fricassee, the chicken was stewed in gravy, then a sauce was made with cream and egg yolks.

Chicken fricassee has been described as "a standard old-fashioned American dish". It was one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite dishes. A 19th century recipe from California for Fricasa de pollos a la española (Spanish-style chicken fricasse) was prepared by frying chickens in lard with chopped onion, shallots, garlic and mushrooms. Tomato juice is added with olives, fresh herbs, and olive oil to make a thick stew. An American recipe for fricasse was recorded by John Burroughs to be made with birds seasoned with nutmeg, parsley, onion and mace, dredged in flour and browned in butter, then stewed in the pan with gravy, egg yolks, wine and nutmeg to make a sauce with the consistency of thickened cream.

Julia Child in Mastering the Art of French Cooking describes it as "halfway between a sauté and a stew" in that a saute has no liquid added, while a stew includes liquid from the beginning. In a fricassee, cut-up meat is first sauteed (but not browned), then liquid is added and it is simmered to finish cooking. 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 the Spanish Caribbean, one of the more popular dishes is fricasé de pollo (chicken fricassee). It was brought to the islands by settlers from the south of France and Spain. Unlike French style fricassee, it has a tomato-based sauce usually with red wine.

See also

• Fricasse
• List of meat dishes

References

1. "Audio pronunciation of 'fricassee'". Merriam Webster. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
2. "fricassee". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
3. Hess, Karen (1996). Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery. Columbia University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-23104-931-3.
4. Fowler, Damon (2009). "Classical Southern Cooking". Gibbs Smiths.
5. Fisher, Mary Frances Kennedy; Fussell, Betty (2005). Masters of American Cookery: M.F.K. Fisher, James Andrew Beard, Raymond Craig Claiborne, Julia McWilliams Child. University of Nebraska Press. p. 228.
6. Rysavy, Francois (1972). A Treasury of White House Cooking. New York: Putnam. p. 250. ISBN 978-0-39910-939-3.
7. El cocinero español by Encarnación Pinedo, 1898
8. Scharnhorst, Gary. Literary Eats. McFarland. p. 26.
9. Child, Julia; Beck, Simone; Bertholle, Louisette (1969). Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 258.
10. Peterson, James (2008). Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making (3 ed.). Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-19496-6, p. 275.
11. "pollofricase". El Boricua. Retrieved 4 October 2016.

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