Name: Chicken or Veal Pie
Ingredients: chicken or veal, cut into small pieces; ham, with most of the fat removed, cut into small pieces; gravy; pie crust (see recipe for pie crust); cream crust (optional, see 'Gayworthy Shortcake')

Why it works: Chicken and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Chicken or Veal Pie

Ingredients

chicken or veal, cut into small pieces
ham, with most of the fat removed, cut into small pieces
gravy
pie crust (see recipe for pie crust)
cream crust (optional, see 'Gayworthy Shortcake')

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Prepare a fricassee of chicken or veal according to your preferred recipe.
Make a pie crust according to your preferred recipe.
If using veal, cook a slice or two of ham with it for added flavor, but do not add too much ham to avoid excessive saltiness.

Assemble and bake

In a deep baking dish, arrange the pieces of meat so that similar pieces are not in the same place.
Fill the dish nearly to the top with gravy.
Cover with a round of pie crust and cut a hole in the center using an apple corer.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 45 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

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.

Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,497 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,370 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,241 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or veal: Forms the main meat filling and provides most of the savory flavor of the pie.
Ham: Adds savory, smoky flavor to the filling when cooked with the veal.
Gravy: Keeps the filling moist and binds the meat pieces together in the dish.
Pie crust: Forms a golden top that seals in the filling and browns during baking.

The step that matters

Baking the crust to golden brown. The crust needs enough oven heat to brown and set; if it is underbaked, it stays pale and soggy, while overbaking can dry out the filling.

“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

Chicken Soup156 recipes

Creamed Chicken89 recipes

Chicken Panada75 recipes

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Chicken or Veal Pie