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Chicken-fie

A savory pie made with boiled chicken, pork fat, and a layered butter crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Chicken-fie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Pluck and singe the chicken. Wipe the chicken with a wet towel. Draw the chicken without breaking the intestines.

  2. Boil the chicken in enough water to cover until tender.

  3. Save the heart, liver, gizzard, and broth.

  4. Cut the chicken into joints or pieces suitable for a pie.

Make the gravy

  1. Slice the fat pork thin.

  2. Fry the sliced pork with the chicken until light brown, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Remove the chicken and pork.

  4. Stir flour into the pan and cook until brown.

  5. Add chicken broth, salt, and pepper to the pan. Stir until it boils for two minutes.

Make the crust

  1. Mix flour, salt, butter, and enough cold water to hold the mixture together.

  2. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 1 inch thick.

  3. Layer slices of firm butter on the dough. Fold the dough to enclose the butter.

  4. Chill the dough for 30 minutes.

  5. Roll out the dough again. Repeat the butter layering process.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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 main meat and, through its boiling, the broth for the gravy.
Fat pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it fries with the chicken until light brown.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked in the pan and gives the dough its structure.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, adding moisture and savory flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure of the dough that encloses the layered butter.
Firm butter
Layered into the dough so it melts during baking, creating flaky layers.

The step that matters

Stir the gravy until it boils for two minutes. Flour thickens liquid only when heated to a boil and held there, so stopping early leaves the gravy thin and starchy-tasting.

“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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