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Chicken Pie

A pie filled with cooked chicken, gravy, butter, and flour, baked in a rich crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

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

  1. Boil the chickens until tender and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Line deep pie plates with the pie crust.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the white and a little dark meat in the pie plates.

  2. Pour the gravy over the chicken and add butter and flour.

  3. Cover with the crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 45 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 filling and protein, becoming tender through boiling.
Chicken gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour that keeps the filling from drying out in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the filling holds together rather than running out of the crust.
Rich pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, forming the pie's outer structure.

The step that matters

Cover with the crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.. Baking long enough lets the crust brown and the filling heat through fully and thicken, so the centre is hot and the gravy sets rather than staying runny.

“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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