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Chicken Pie

A savory pie with boiled chicken and broth encased in 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.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Wash the chicken in cold water.

  2. Place the chicken in a stew pan with enough cold water to cover it.

  3. Just before it begins to boil, skim the surface.

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

  5. Cover and cook until the chicken is tender.

  6. Remove the chicken.

  7. Boil the broth down to ½ pint.

  8. Strain the broth through a gravy strainer or wire sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the pastry.

  2. Cut the pastry into squares.

  3. Line a deep, well-buttered dish with some pastry.

  4. Add a layer of chicken cut side up.

  5. Add a layer of pastry squares with 2 large spoonfuls of broth.

  6. Repeat layers.

  7. Finish with chicken and broth on top.

  8. Cover with pastry.

  9. Cut a few slits in it.

  10. Bake in the oven 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 main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in water.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the broth and helps keep the pastry tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter and broth mixture so the sauce is less thin.
Pastry
Forms the crust and layers that hold the chicken and broth together while baking.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface before boiling. Removing foam and scum as the water heats keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting. Letting it boil hard first would cloud the broth and mix impurities back into it.

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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