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Chicken Pie with Oysters

A savory pie made with shredded chicken, oysters, broth, and a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Pie with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, then remove and let cool.

  2. Line a pie dish with a crust.

  3. Shred the chicken and place it in the dish, seasoning with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. Add the chicken broth, ensuring it does not exceed 1 pint.

Prepare the oysters

  1. Drain the oysters and boil them briefly, skimming off any foam.

  2. Season the oysters with butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Mix flour with water to create a thickening, then add to the oysters and boil briefly.

  4. Pour the oyster mixture over the chicken in the pie.

Bake

  1. Cover the pie loosely with a crust, making slits in the middle.

  2. About 20 minutes before the pie is done, lift the crust and add the oysters.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Chicken + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together972 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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
Provides the main body of the filling and its savoury meat flavour.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and tender texture to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquid so it binds rather than running thin.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the seasoned chicken and oysters.
Chicken broth
Supplies liquid and savoury depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters late. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they are added about 20 minutes before the pie is done to stay tender.

“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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