Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Pie

A savory pie filled with chicken and vegetables, topped with a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. 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.

Make the stock

  1. Place the chicken in a pot and cover with warm water.

  2. Add salt, peppercorns, onion, celery, carrot, and turnip.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours or until the meat separates from the bones.

  4. Boil the liquid down to 2 cups.

Make the gravy

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the liquid until smooth.

  4. Stir in the cream.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Remove most of the chicken from the bones, leaving a few small bones.

  2. Layer chicken and gravy in a baking dish, placing the breast bone in the center.

  3. Add layers of potatoes, truffles, mushrooms, or oysters (optional).

  4. Cover with a crust about ¾ inch thick.

  5. Cut a slit in the center of the crust for steam.

  6. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness to the flour-thickened base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth, stable gravy.
Thick cream
Adds body and richness to the gravy, giving it a silky texture.
Chicken
Provides the main filling, with its cooked meat and bones flavoring the stock.

The step that matters

Gradually add the liquid until smooth. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, properly thickened gravy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, carrot, turnip, butter, 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipes