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Chicken Pie

A baked chicken pie with gravy, crust, and optional layers of potatoes, mushrooms, or oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put a good-sized old chicken in a pot and cover with warm water.

  2. Add two teaspoonfuls of salt, six peppercorns, one sliced onion, three stalks of celery or celery root, one carrot and one sliced turnip.

  3. Cook slowly for two hours, or until the meat will leave the bones.

  4. Boil the liquor down to two cups.

Make the gravy

  1. Melt one-fourth cup of butter in a sauce pan.

  2. Stir in one tablespoonful of flour, and gradually add the two cups of liquor.

  3. When the mixture is smooth, stir in one-half cup of thick cream, season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pick the chicken mostly from the bones, leaving a few small bones to hold up the pie.

  2. Put a layer of the chicken in the bottom of a baking dish.

  3. Cover with a layer of the gravy.

  4. Place the breast bone in the center of the dish to hold up the crust.

  5. Fill up with the layers.

  6. Optionally add layers of thin-sliced potatoes, a few truffles or mushrooms, or alternate layers of chicken, oysters and the gravy.

  7. The baking dish is often lined with a thin layer of pastry, but it is very apt to be soggy.

  8. Put a crust on top three-fourths of an inch thick, cutting a slit in the center to let out the steam.

  9. Bake three-quarters of an hour.

  10. To cover the pie use plain pastry, chopped puff pastry, or a rich baking powder biscuit dough.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

664Calories
15 gProtein
18 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Liquornot in our table0
Waternot 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.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness to its flavor.
Flour
Thickens the liquor into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy.
Chicken (in the method)
Provides the meat that forms the body of the pie.

The step that matters

Stirring the gravy smooth before adding cream. Flour must be fully mixed into the melted butter and liquor so it thickens evenly; lumps form if liquid is added too quickly, and the gravy then will not coat the chicken evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, butter, flour, cream, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, flour, cream, 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.

More chicken pie recipes

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