Name: C'hickebt and Oyster Pie
Ingredients: 1 chicken; 1 pint oysters; 2 hard boiled eggs; 1 egg-sized piece of butter; ½ cup flour; ½ pint milk; puff pastry crust

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 ↓

C'hickebt and Oyster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

Parboil the chicken.
Cut the chicken into pieces.
Place the chicken in a pie dish.
Cover the chicken with oysters and season to taste.
Add the sliced hard-boiled eggs.
Place the butter in the center.
Dust the entire dish with flour.
Pour the milk over it.

Bake

Cover with puff pastry crust.
Bake for about 45 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Chicken: Forms the bulk of the pie and provides the main savory meat flavor.
Oysters: Add a briny, savory flavor that seasons the filling as it cooks.
Eggs: Add richness and body to the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Flour: Thickens the milk and butter into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Milk: Forms the creamy liquid that becomes the sauce when thickened by flour.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the sauce and carries flavor through the filling.

“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.