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Chickex Pie

Chicken stew topped with pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chickex Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Dress, clean and cut up the chickens.

  2. Boil 3 pints of water in a kettle.

  3. Add chicken pieces gradually to maintain boiling.

  4. Cover and cook slowly until the meat is tender.

  5. Add salt during the last 30 minutes.

  6. Remove chicken.

Make the gravy

  1. Discard skin and larger bones.

  2. Strain the stock.

  3. Skim off fat.

  4. Reduce to 4 cups.

  5. Thicken stock with butter and flour mixture.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange chicken in a serving dish.

  2. Pour gravy over it.

  3. Let stand overnight.

  4. Reheat before serving.

  5. Cover with a decorated pie crust.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Chickens
Provide the meat that becomes the main body of the pie.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness to its flavor.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy when cooked with butter.

The step that matters

Thicken stock with butter and flour mixture. Flour must be cooked with the butter and whisked into hot stock to avoid lumps and raw flour taste. Stirring as it heats lets starch swell evenly, giving a smooth, properly thickened gravy.

“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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