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Dinner— Chicken Pie with Oysters

A savory pie filled with shredded chicken and oysters, served with roast potatoes, salsify, and dried Lima beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

Dinner— Chicken Pie with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cook the chicken until tender, then shred it.

  3. Mix the shredded chicken with oysters and place in a pie crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with another layer of pie crust and seal the edges.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.

  3. Serve with roast potatoes, salsify, and dried Lima beans.

  4. Prepare lobster salad and currant jelly as sides.

  5. Finish with orange pudding and fruit cake for dessert.

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. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  2. Potato + lima beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Potato + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Oyster + lobstertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Chicken + lima beanstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat filling, becoming tender through slow cooking and then shredding.
Oysters
Adds a briny, savory flavor to the chicken filling.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking at 350°F until golden sets the crust and cooks the filling through, while the browning adds flavor and a crisp texture. Underbaking leaves the crust pale and soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, oyster, potato, lima beans, lobster, orange):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Grapefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, oyster, potato, lima beans, lobster, orange. 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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