Name: Chicken Pie
Ingredients: chicken, cooked and deboned; gravy; butter; baking powder biscuit crust

Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

chicken, cooked and deboned
gravy
butter
baking powder biscuit crust

Directions

Prepare a crust similar to baking powder biscuits.
Remove the bones from the chicken and mix it with gravy and butter.
Season the mixture well.
Place the mixture in a pie dish and cover with the top crust.
Wet the edges of the lower crust with cold water.
Press the upper crust onto the lower crust to seal it and prevent gravy from leaking.

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.

Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,009 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Chicken + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together332 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).