Skip to main content
Main

Spanish Chicken Pie

A savory pie with chicken, olives, raisins, and chili pepper pulp topped with biscuit dough.

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

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Spanish Chicken Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the chicken until tender.

  2. Prepare the chili pepper pulp by removing seeds and boiling until soft, then scrape out the insides.

  3. Add the pepper pulp, olives, raisins, onion (or garlic), and salt to the chicken.

  4. Thicken the mixture with flour made smooth in a little cold water.

Make the biscuit topping

  1. Make a biscuit dough by mixing flour, baking powder, and salt, then adding enough milk to form a soft dough.

  2. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick, cut into biscuits, dip each in melted butter, and place over the chicken, leaving one space in the middle.

Bake and serve

  1. Fifteen minutes before serving, transfer the mixture to a baking dish, filling it about 2/3 full.

  2. Ensure the chicken is boiling hot before covering with the biscuits to prevent a soggy crust.

  3. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the biscuits are golden.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and savory meat that the filling is built around.
Chili pepper pulp
Supplies the chili flavor and color that defines the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds together under the biscuit topping.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the biscuits rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the biscuit tops brown golden in the oven.

The step that matters

Make sure the chicken is boiling hot before adding the biscuits. Biscuit dough placed over cool filling absorbs moisture slowly and bakes up gummy or soggy underneath. Starting with a hot filling lets the base cook as the topping sets and browns.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, olive, onion, flour, milk, butter):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, olive, onion, flour, milk, butter. 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 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes