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Chicken Pie

A baked chicken pie with a sweet cream filling and biscuit crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the chickens until cooked through, then season with butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cut the chickens into small pieces and place them in a four-quart pan.

  3. Add the sweet cream to the pan.

Make the crust

  1. Prepare a crust using the same method as for baking powder biscuits, substituting cream for milk.

  2. If using sour cream, mix in 1 teaspoon of baking soda instead of baking powder and add a little salt.

Bake

  1. Cover the chicken mixture with the crust.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main cooked meat that forms the body of the pie.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the filling and softens the crust.
Baking powder biscuit crust
Forms a tender topping that rises and browns as it bakes over the filling.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour cream to help the crust rise and brown.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the cooked chicken.

The step that matters

Covering the chicken mixture with the crust. The crust must cover the filling fully so that steam is trapped and the topping bakes through and browns evenly. Gaps let the filling dry out or bubble over unevenly.

“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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