Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Boil the chicken until tender, then remove the bones.
Throw the bones back into the boiling water with onion, salt, and pepper.
Boil down the mixture, strain, and put on ice to form chicken jelly.
Cut all the meat finely.
Make the sauce
Melt a tablespoon of butter with 2 heaping tablespoons of flour.
Add the jelly, the meat, ½ can of mushrooms with some of the liquor, 3 hard‑boiled eggs chopped finely, a little salt, 1 tablespoonful of Worcester sauce, grated lemon peel, and 1 wineglass of sherry to the butter‑flour mixture.
Bake and serve
Line the sides of a pie dish with good crusts.
Bake in an oven until brown.
Pour in the chicken, put a light crust on top, bake again, and serve as soon as it becomes a light brown.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Chicken | 100g cooked | 165 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Wine | 2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml) | 25 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Sauce | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Sherry + chickentop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together891 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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
- Provides the meat and, through its bones, the jelly that moistens and sets the filling.
- Flour
- Melted with butter to form a roux that thickens the filling into a smooth sauce.
- Butter
- Fat that cooks with the flour to form the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
- Hard boiled eggs
- Chopped finely and folded in, adding body and richness to the filling.
- Sherry
- Adds aroma and a sweet-acidic depth to the sauce.
The step that matters
Bake until light brown, then stop. Browning the crust depends on oven heat, and over-baking dries the filling and toughens the pastry, so it should be removed as soon as it turns light brown.
“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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