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African Chicken Pie

A baked chicken pie layered with ham, sliced hard-boiled eggs, and a thickened wine-and-stock sauce under puff pastry.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

African Chicken Pie

Oven400 degrees
Timeone to two hours

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. In a large pot or dutch oven, place chicken, onion, allspice, cloves, mace, salt and peppercorns.

  2. Add 3 cups of water and bring all to a boil.

  3. Lower the heat, cover and simmer until tender, one to two hours.

  4. Place chicken on a platter to cool.

  5. Strain out spices and save 3 cups chicken stock.

  6. When chicken is cool, debone chicken, cut into 1-inch pieces and discard the skin.

Make the sauce

  1. Add wine to chicken stock, bring to a boil and slowly add cream of wheat.

  2. Reduce heat to low and stir constantly until thickened.

  3. In a small bowl, mix together egg yolks and lemon juice.

  4. Stir 3 to 4 tbls. of sauce into yolks, then add yolk mixture to sauce.

  5. Bring to a boil for one minute, then remove from heat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place 1/2 deboned chicken in a baking dish, scatter chopped ham on top, then place a row of egg slices.

  2. Repeat the layers, then pour sauce over the two layers.

  3. Cut 1/4 lb. sweet butter into two cups of flour until it is the consistency of pie dough.

  4. Add 4 to 6 tbls. water and knead into a ball.

  5. Flour a board and roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin as you would pie dough.

  6. Place on top of baking dish and pinch edges.

  7. Brush top with water and egg mixture.

  8. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

464Calories
36 gProtein
25 gFat
18 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 13 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Pork100g cooked242
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0
Waternot in our table0
Wheatnot in our table0
Pastrynot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken hen
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Cream of wheat
Thickens the stock into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when stirred in and briefly heated.
Flour (in the method)
Forms the structure of the pastry dough with the butter.
Sweet butter (in the method)
Adds fat that makes the pastry tender and flaky.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the layered filling.

The step that matters

Bring the yolk mixture to a boil. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the sauce is not stirred constantly while the yolks are added, they can scramble into lumps. Tempering with hot sauce first helps prevent this.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, allspice, clove, ham, white wine, cream, wheat):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, allspice, clove, ham, white wine, cream, wheat. 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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