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Chicken Pot-pie

A chicken pot pie with bread dough dumplings and potatoes simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and dough

  1. Place the chicken in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. While the chicken is boiling, mix a slice of bread dough with lard until it resembles light biscuit dough.

  3. Cut out shapes with a cake cutter and let them rise over the stove.

Cook and serve

  1. Wash and peel the potatoes, adding them to the pot when the chicken is almost done.

  2. Once the potatoes begin to boil, season with salt and pepper, then dredge with flour.

  3. Add the dumplings, season again, and dredge with flour.

  4. Ensure there is enough water to prevent burning, cover tightly, and do not remove the lid until the dumplings are cooked, about 30 minutes.

  5. To check if the dumplings are done, lift one edge of the lid and break one open.

  6. Serve the potatoes separately and the chicken and dumplings together.

  7. For gravy, add more water, butter, and seasoning if needed.

Alternative dumplings

  1. Alternatively, make dumplings with sour milk, beaten eggs, baking soda mixed in flour, salt, and enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the pot, cover tightly, and boil as above.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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 and the broth that flavours the whole pot.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and flaky rather than tough.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and gives the dumplings and gravy body.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the alternative dumplings.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the dumplings.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang to the dumplings.

The step that matters

Keep the lid tightly closed while the dumplings cook. Steam trapped under the lid cooks the dumplings through the top. Lifting it lets steam escape, so the dumplings can turn dense or stay raw in the middle.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, pepper, flour, milk, egg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, pepper, flour, milk, egg, butter. 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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