Name: Chicken Stewed with Green Corn
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken, cut up; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Black pepper, to taste; Fresh green corn, cut off the cob; 1 tablespoon butter; Water, as needed; 1 pie crust; Milk, for thickening; Flour, for thickening

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 Stewed with Green Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Season and simmer

Season the cut-up chicken with salt and pepper.
Layer the chicken and corn in a stew pan, sprinkling with salt, pepper, and minced parsley.
Add the butter and cover with water.
Place the pie crust on top, making slits in it.
Boil for one hour.

Crust and serve

Once done, place the crust in a deep dish.
Remove the chicken and corn, placing them in the crust.
Thicken the gravy with milk and flour, then pour it over the chicken and corn.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,666 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Chicken: Provides the main protein and structure, and releases flavorful juices into the stew liquid.
Corn: Adds natural sweetness and tender kernels that soften as they simmer.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel in the stew.
Flour: Its starch swells when heated in liquid, thickening the gravy.
Milk: Adds creaminess and body to the gravy alongside the flour.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with milk and flour. Flour clumps if dumped in directly. Whisk it smoothly into the milk or cooking liquid first, then heat it. Starch granules swell and gelatinize when hot, which thickens the gravy evenly.

“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.

Chicken Broth257 recipes

Corn Fritters203 recipes

Chicken Soup156 recipes

Creamed Chicken89 recipes

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Chicken Stewed with Green Corn