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Chicken En Casserole

A baked chicken casserole with butter, onion, carrot, stock, bay leaf, thyme, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,557 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Chicken En Casserole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and vegetables

  1. Clean and joint a tender spring chicken.

  2. Put into a frying pan three tablespoons of butter and fry in this a small onion and a carrot, both cut into tiny dice.

  3. When these are lightly browned, turn them into the casserole and add to them two cups of clear soup stock in which a bay leaf and a little thyme have been boiled and removed.

Braise and finish

  1. Lay the jointed chicken in this liquid, fit the cover closely and put the casserole in the oven.

  2. Cook for one hour with a very steady fire.

  3. At the end of this time stir in a dessertspoonful of tomato catsup, cover and cook for half an hour longer.

  4. Then add two dozen small French mushrooms, which have previously been stewed ten minutes, season, and leave uncovered long enough for the chicken to brown.

  5. The French always add a glass of sherry or some other wine to flavor their gravy.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

123Calories
2 gProtein
12 gFat
4 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Soupnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + thymetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken (in the method)
Provides the meat that becomes tender through slow, covered braising in the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the onion and carrot, carrying flavor and aiding gentle browning.
Soup stock
Forms the cooking liquid that gently moisture-cooks the chicken and builds the gravy.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and texture to the gravy after being pre-stewed.

The step that matters

Leaving the lid off to brown the chicken. Uncovered finishing lets surface moisture evaporate so the chicken browns, while the covered braise keeps the meat tender. Leaving it uncovered too long can dry the gravy and the meat.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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