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Chicken Pie

A savory pie filled with chicken, ham, sausage, eggs, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the gravy

  1. Combine chicken trimmings, neck, bones, pepper, salt, mace, onion, herbs, and water or stock in a stewpan.

  2. Simmer gently for 1.5 hours to make gravy.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line the edges of a pie dish with pie crust.

  2. Layer chicken, ham, sausage meat, and hard-boiled eggs in the dish until full.

  3. Pour 1 cup of water or white stock over the layers and cover with pie crust.

  4. Brush the top with egg yolk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes, covering with paper to prevent over-browning.

  2. Check doneness with a trussing needle; if it goes through easily, the pie is ready.

  3. Pour in the prepared gravy before serving.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and, through its bones and trimmings, the flavour of the gravy.
Eggs
Hard-boiled eggs add firm, sliced body to the filling, and the yolk glaze helps the crust brown.
Sausage meat
Adds rich, savoury fat and flavour that moistens the filling as it cooks.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky savour to the layered filling.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the gravy base.

The step that matters

Baking with the paper cover. The top crust browns quickly at 400°F, so covering it with paper prevents scorching while the filling heats through and the crust sets and cooks fully.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, onion, ham, meat, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, onion, ham, meat, egg. 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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