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My Mother's Chicken Pie

A savory pie of stewed chicken, potatoes, onions, oysters, and bacon, topped with a biscuit crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

My Mother's 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 filling

  1. Stew the chicken and salt pork in a pot for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the chopped onion and potatoes to the pot.

  3. Cook the mixture until the onion and potatoes dissolve in the gravy.

  4. Season the stew with white pepper, coarse sea salt, celery salt, and butter.

  5. Mix in the beaten eggs and milk.

  6. Boil the oysters and skim the liquor from them.

  7. Add the oyster liquor to the chicken mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with the biscuit crust.

  2. Layer the chicken mixture and raw oysters in the dish.

  3. Season each layer.

  4. Dot the top with bits of breakfast bacon.

  5. Add gravy until it is even with the top layer.

  6. Cover loosely with crust, making an opening for steam to escape.

  7. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is golden brown.

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 + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, as it stews, the body of the gravy.
Eggs
Beaten into the filling, they help it set and firm up as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the filling.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour and tender texture to the layers.
Potatoes
Break down into the gravy, thickening it and giving body to the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the filling as it sets.

The step that matters

Add gravy until it is even with the top layer. Enough liquid keeps the filling moist during baking, while too much can overflow or leave the crust soggy underneath.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, onion, potato, celery, butter, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, onion, potato, celery, butter, 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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