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Chicken Pie

A savory pie filled with chicken and broth, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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.

Make the broth

  1. Wash the chicken pieces in cold water and place them in a stew pan with enough cold water to cover.

  2. Skim the water just before it begins to boil.

  3. Add parsley, mace, lemon peel, butter mixed with flour, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cover and cook until the chicken is tender.

  5. Remove the chicken and boil the broth down to ½ pint.

  6. Strain the broth through a sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a deep, well-buttered dish with pastry.

  2. Add a layer of chicken cut side up.

  3. Add a layer of pastry squares.

  4. Pour in two large spoonfuls of broth.

  5. Repeat the layering of chicken, pastry, and broth, finishing with chicken and broth.

  6. Cover with pastry.

  7. Cut slits in the top.

  8. Bake at 400°F (200°C) 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 meat and, as it cooks, the flavour and body of the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps keep the pastry tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter and broth, giving the filling a slightly thicker texture.
Pastry
Forms the structure around the filling and the crisp, browning top crust.

The step that matters

Skim the water just before it begins to boil. Skimming removes foam and impurities that rise as the liquid heats, keeping the broth clearer and cleaner in flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, parsley, lemon, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, parsley, lemon, butter, flour, pepper. 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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