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Chicken Pie

A baked pie of stewed chicken with butter, milk, salt, pepper, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pie

  1. Stew chickens until tender.

  2. Line the sides of a deep pie dish with pastry.

  3. Place the stewed chicken and the water in which it boiled (half a pint) into the dish.

  4. Season with a large piece of butter, salt, and pepper.

  5. Cover loosely with a crust.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. While the pie is baking, prepare a quart can of fine oysters.

  2. Put a pint of rich milk (or oyster liquor) on the fire and bring to a boil.

  3. Thicken with a little flour, season with butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Pour this over the oysters while boiling.

Finish and bake

  1. About fifteen minutes before the pie is done, lift the crust and pour the oysters and all into the pie.

  2. Return to the oven to finish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

257Calories
8 gProtein
20 gFat
14 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens (in the method)
Provide the main filling, which becomes tender through stewing before baking.
Rich milk
Forms the base of the thickened sauce that binds the filling together.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the boiling milk so the sauce coats the oysters rather than running thin.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor through the filling and sauce.

The step that matters

Pouring the oysters into the pie. Lifting the crust and adding the oysters near the end keeps them from overcooking, since oysters turn tough and rubbery with prolonged heat.

“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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