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Chicken Pie

A baked pie with boiled chicken, hearts, livers, flour, salt, mace, and pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,009 recipes. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens in enough water to cover them for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Carefully cut up the chickens and remove thick skin.

Assemble the pie

  1. In a deep dish, layer the chicken pieces with chopped hearts and livers, sprinkling each layer with flour, salt, and a little mace.

  2. Pour the reserved boiling liquid over the layered chicken until the dish is full.

  3. For added richness, mix in some cream with the boiling liquid.

  4. Wet the edges of the pastry with water.

  5. Cover the pastry with the top crust.

  6. Seal the edges of the pastry.

  7. Prick the crust.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the top crust is done.

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. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  2. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Chicken + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Flour + macetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,974 recipes

Chicken and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,559 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

Chickens
Provide the meat and the flavorful cooking liquid that becomes the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the filling becomes saucy rather than watery.
Pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Rich cream
Adds fat and smoothness to the liquid, giving a richer, silkier filling.

The step that matters

Layering and filling the dish. Flour must be sprinkled between the chicken layers and the boiling liquid poured in so the filling thickens evenly. Dry or unevenly distributed flour can leave lumps or pockets of raw starch.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, cream):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, cream. 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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