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Plain Chicken Pie

A savory pie made with stewed chicken, onions, potatoes, and a soda biscuit crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Stew the cut-up chickens with slices of fat meat in a pot for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the sliced onions and potatoes, cooking until they dissolve into the gravy.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, parsley, and stir in the butter.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix with the milk, then stir into the stew.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a 5-quart pan with soda biscuit dough, add the chicken and gravy, and cover with a top crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews in the gravy.
Eggs
Set with the milk to thicken the gravy and bind the filling.
Potatoes
Break down into the gravy, adding body and thickness to the filling.
Onions
Soften and dissolve into the gravy, adding sweetness and savory depth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and milk into the stew. Eggs thicken when heated gently; adding them to a very hot stew can scramble them, so keep the heat moderate and stir steadily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, potato, pepper, parsley, butter, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, potato, pepper, parsley, 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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