Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the chicken
Cut the chicken into pieces suitable for stewing.
Steam the chicken pieces until tender.
Place the chicken in a deep dish with plenty of gravy, salt, pepper, and butter.
Make the batter and bake
In a bowl, mix the sour cream, a pinch of salt, and the baking soda dissolved in the cream with enough flour to make a thick batter.
Pour the batter evenly over the chicken.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Forms the main filling, becoming tender during steaming and stewing.
- Sour cream
- Adds tangy acidity and moisture to the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to help the batter rise and brown.
- Flour
- Thickens the sour cream into a batter that bakes into a set topping.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor to the gravy around the chicken.
The step that matters
Dissolving the baking soda in the sour cream. Baking soda needs an acid to react with, and the sour cream supplies it. Dissolving it evenly in the cream before adding flour spreads the reaction through the batter, so it rises and browns evenly instead of leaving pockets of soda.
“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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