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Chicken Pie

A baked pie with chicken, potatoes, and a flour-based 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. Add enough water to form a stiff dough.

Assemble the pie

  1. Roll out half the dough to ½ inch thick and line a pie dish with it.

  2. Layer half the chicken and half the potatoes in the dish. Season with butter, pepper, and salt, then dredge with flour.

  3. Add the remaining chicken and potatoes, season again, and dredge with flour.

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

  5. Before placing the top crust, fill the dish with boiling water.

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 stiff dough that holds the pie together as a crust.
Lard
Adds fat that shortens the dough, making it tender and flaky.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the dough as it bakes.
Chicken
Provides the main filling, cooked tender by boiling before assembly.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the filling, thickening it as it cooks.

The step that matters

Dredging the layers with flour. Flour sprinkled over the filling thickens the cooking liquid so the filling sets rather than running out when the pie is sliced. Season and dredge each layer evenly for a consistent texture.

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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