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Dessert

Chicken Pie

A savory pie with stewed chicken covered in a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

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 the filling

  1. Cook the chicken until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and cook the flour until golden.

  3. Add the chicken stock and cream (or milk) to the flour mixture and pour over the chicken.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder, then rub in the butter.

  2. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk, then combine with the dry ingredients.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the stewed chicken in a dish and cover with the crust.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the flour roux and rubbed into the crust, adding richness and tenderness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as a roux and provides structure in the crust.
Chicken stock
Forms the savoury liquid that becomes the pie's sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Egg
Binds the crust mixture and helps it brown in the oven.
Royal baking powder
Lifts the crust so it rises and becomes lighter as it bakes.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in butter. Cooking the flour in the melted butter until golden makes a roux; cooking it only briefly leaves a raw floury taste and weaker thickening, while overcooking reduces its thickening power.

“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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