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Chicken Pie

A baked dish of boiled chicken covered with a biscuit-like dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil or steam the chicken until cooked through, then season with pepper and salt.

  2. Remove all bones from the chicken.

  3. In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder, then cut in the shortening to form a biscuit-like dough.

Assemble and bake

  1. Use half of the dough to line a deep dish, extending it slightly above the edge.

  2. Place the chicken in the dish and cover with the remaining dough.

  3. Cut holes in the top crust for steam to escape.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 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 savory meat filling that is cooked through before baking.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the biscuit-like dough that encloses the filling.
Shortening
Cut into the flour to make the dough tender and flaky as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the crust rises and becomes light.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic seasoning to the cooked chicken.

The step that matters

Cut holes in the top crust. Vents let steam escape during baking; without them, trapped steam can build pressure, make the crust soggy or lift it unevenly.

“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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