Chicken Fricassée

Although some contemporary recipes have stretched the traditional definition of a fricassée—browning the chicken and using a variety of moistening liquids and garnitures—a classic fricassée should be almost perfectly white and the braising liquid always finished with heavy cream and egg yolks.

In this recipe, flour is cooked with onions sweated in the butter used for the chicken to form a roux. But a more intensely flavored sauce can be prepared by eliminating the flour, moistening