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Chicken Pie

A savory pie made with boiled chicken, potatoes, and a dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

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

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, about 1 hour.

  2. Peel and chop the potatoes while the chicken is cooking.

  3. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and lard.

  4. Add enough water to form a stiff dough.

  5. Roll out half the dough to ½ inch thick.

Assemble

  1. Line a pie dish with the rolled dough.

  2. Layer half the chicken and half the potatoes in the dish.

  3. Season with butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Dredge the layered mixture with flour.

  5. Add small pieces of crust on top of the first layer.

  6. Layer the remaining chicken and potatoes in the dish.

  7. Season the second layer as before.

  8. Roll out the remaining dough for the top crust.

  9. Fill the dish with boiling water.

  10. Place the top crust on the dish.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

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 + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough that encloses the filling and sets as a crust.
Lard
Adds fat that shortens the dough, giving it a tender, flaky texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the crust rises and lightens.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory meat in the filling.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the filling and gives body to the pie.

The step that matters

Add enough water to form a stiff dough. A stiff dough holds its shape when rolled and lined into the dish. Too much water makes it sticky and tough, while too little makes it crumble and crack during baking.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, butter, 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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