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Chicken, Casserole of

A baked chicken casserole with bacon, mushrooms, shallot, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken, Casserole of

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the chicken

  1. Heat 1 oz of butter in a casserole large enough to hold the chicken.

  2. Fry the bacon strips until browned.

  3. Add the chicken, shallot, and mushrooms to the casserole, cover, and cook slowly.

  4. Turn the chicken pieces over until both sides are nicely browned.

Simmer and thicken

  1. Add stock to barely cover the chicken and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Knead the flour and remaining 1 oz of butter together, then add in small pieces about 15 minutes before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the chicken in the casserole or transfer to a hot dish if preferred.

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.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its savoury meat flavour.
Streaky bacon
Renders fat into the pan and adds a smoky, salty savour to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the chicken, with part kneaded into flour for thickening.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce when kneaded with butter and added.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture that mingles with the stock as they cook.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour paste. Added in small pieces, the flour and butter disperse and thicken the stock evenly. Adding them all at once can form lumps that stay in the sauce.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, mushroom, flour, pepper. 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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