Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Delicious Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the chicken
Remove all fat, skin, and tendons from the chickens.
Place chickens in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, and simmer gently for 2 hours, keeping covered.
Remove chickens, cut into pieces, and place in a deep pie dish.
Make the sauce
Add milk to the cooking liquid.
Thicken with flour creamed with butter.
Season with cayenne, onion juice, and salt.
Just before removing from heat, stir in the beaten egg yolks.
Pour the sauce over the chicken.
Cover and bake
Once cooled, cover with pastry, making an incision in the center for steam to escape.
Brush with egg white.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the pastry is cooked.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Flour and butter 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 is cooked gently until tender and then set in the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, spoonable sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and body to the sauce.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich and further thicken the sauce when stirred in near the end.
- Pastry
- Forms a sealed crust that bakes to a golden, crisp top.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if the sauce boils. Adding them just before removing the pan from heat, as the method says, keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, flour, butter, pepper, egg):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, flour, butter, pepper, egg. 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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