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Chicken Wiggle

A baked casserole of diced chicken, corn or peas, flour, butter, and milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional paprika or curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Wiggle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and pepper, stirring to combine.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth.

Combine and serve

  1. Stir in the chicken and vegetables, cooking until heated through.

  2. For a larger serving, use 2 cups of milk and increase the flour slightly.

  3. Optionally, garnish with quartered hard-boiled eggs.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to the flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes the creamy sauce.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.
Corn or peas
Adds sweetness, color, and texture to the casserole.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, preventing lumps. Flour needs to be evenly wetted before it can thicken the liquid into a smooth sauce.

“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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