Chicken Fricassée

There is great joy in preparing food from scratch, without any artificial flavors and have it taste marvelous. One thing I cook reasonably frequently is Chicken Fricassée broadly based on the recipe by Julia Child in her seminal book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I tend to make my own tweaks, so I use black pepper because it tastes better, I use breast meat only because the thigh meat has a strong flavor that does not go well with the delicate sauce. Sometimes I add paprika for a pink dish, which is cute. I typically skip the mushroom garnish because it takes too much effort to fry mushrooms, and my kitchen is small, which means I have to fry them in batches in my largest pan, which cause a lot of spattering.

I have found it tastes best with somewhat sticky rice, like what is used for making Sushi. Even Jasmine rice is not suitable with this dish; Basmati is just too nutty. I have found that pasta does not go well with it. It is a favorite in our household, and I find it easy to make. It takes about 10 minutes to cut the vegetables and get everything ready, but from that point on, cooking continues in one pot. You have to be careful with the final egg yolk-heavy cream enrichment. If the egg yolks are heated suddenly, they curdle. That ruins the appearance of the sauce, though the taste is not affected.

For an Indian flavor, you can add clove powder, chopped almonds, raisins, cumin powder, fenugreek leaves, green cardamom and coriander in addition. Saffron strands are also something to consider, but they make the dish earthy. Please do not use curry powder, I hate recipes asking for curry powder.