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Chicken Pie

A savory pie with browned chicken, herbs, cream, eggs, and a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a deep oven-safe dish, brown the cut-up chicken in lard.

  3. Add chopped onion, parsley, thyme, sage, and black pepper to taste.

  4. Pour in boiling water, stir well, and let it simmer until cooked.

Make the custard and crust

  1. In a bowl, mix cream, butter, egg yolks, nutmeg, and spices.

  2. Prepare a paste with flour, butter, and lard, then line a deep dish with it.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the chicken and bacon in the dish, add crumbs, pepper, and butter.

  2. Fill with cold water and add more egg yolks, then dredge with flour.

  3. Cover with the top crust and bake for two hours.

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. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which cooks through during simmering and bakes in the pie.
Lard
Adds fat for browning the chicken and makes the pastry tender and flaky.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry paste and helps thicken the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the custard mixture and the pastry.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the custard set when baked.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the custard mixture.

The step that matters

Simmering the chicken until cooked. The chicken must be fully cooked before assembly, since the pie is baked only as long as the record states and the filling needs to be tender and safe to eat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, parsley, thyme, sage, pepper, cream, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, parsley, thyme, sage, pepper, cream, butter. 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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