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Chicken Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled chicken, onions, parsley, and a buttery egg custard, topped with a soda biscuit crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Disjoint the chickens.

  2. Cut the backbone into small pieces.

  3. Boil the chickens with salt pork in enough water to cover them until tender.

  4. Remove the breast bone.

  5. Skim off the scum.

Make the filling

  1. Add finely chopped onion, parsley, pepper, and salt to the pot.

  2. Stir in fresh butter.

  3. Ensure there is enough liquid to cover the chicken.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix in the sweet cream.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pan with a crust made like soda biscuit.

  2. Add the chicken and liquid.

  3. Cover with another crust.

  4. Bake until the crust is done.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that forms the main body of the pie filling.
Eggs
Bind the cream and broth so the filling sets and holds together when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, savoury flavour and mouthfeel.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, making the filling creamier and more tender.
Soda biscuit crust
Forms the pastry top and bottom that enclose the filling and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Ensure there is enough liquid to cover the chicken. Chicken left exposed above the liquid can dry out and toughen during baking, while enough liquid keeps the meat moist and lets the egg and cream mixture set evenly around it.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, onion, pepper, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, onion, pepper, butter, egg, cream. 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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