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Chicken Casserole

A baked chicken casserole with onions, garlic, butter, flour, Worcestershire sauce, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Casserole

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chicken Casserole

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Dress and cut up the chicken, then dust lightly with flour.

  2. Fry the chicken in hot drippings until slightly browned on both sides.

  3. In the bottom of a casserole, add the diced onion and minced garlic.

  4. Place the chicken in the casserole.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the butter, black pepper, and red pepper if desired.

  2. Make a paste with the flour and Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Pour the paste over the chicken.

  4. Add the drippings used for frying and enough boiling water to barely cover the chicken.

  5. Cover the casserole and cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour without opening the lid.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein; browning in hot drippings adds savory flavor to the dish.
Flour
Dusted on the chicken and mixed into a paste that thickens the cooking liquid.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds tangy, savory depth to the paste that coats the chicken.
Onion
Softens during baking and adds sweetness and aroma to the base of the casserole.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during the long, covered bake.

The step that matters

Frying the chicken until slightly browned. Browning creates flavorful Maillard compounds on the surface. Chicken fried too briefly stays pale and tastes flat after the covered bake.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, garlic, butter, pepper, flour, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, garlic, butter, pepper, flour, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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