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Chicken Pot-pie No. 1

A baked chicken pot pie with boiled chicken, gravy thickened with flour and butter, topped with light bread dough circles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Pot-pie No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut and joint the chicken.

  2. Cover with cold water and boil gently until tender.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the gravy and dough

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed smooth with butter.

  2. Prepare light bread dough.

  3. Cut the dough into circles about ½ inch thick.

  4. Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.

Cook the pot pie

  1. Drop the dough circles into the boiling gravy.

  2. Cover the pot tightly and wrap it to keep steam in.

  3. Boil for 45 minutes without letting the pot stop boiling.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

Chicken
Provides the meat and flavour that the gravy is built on as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it heats.
Butter
Mixed with the flour, it helps the flour blend smoothly and adds richness to the gravy.
Light bread dough
Cooks into soft, fluffy dumplings that absorb the gravy and rise while boiling.

The step that matters

Keep the pot boiling and covered during the 45 minutes. Steam trapped under the lid cooks the dough through and lets it puff. If the boil stops, the dumplings can turn heavy and doughy.

“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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