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Chicken Pie

A baked dish of chicken pieces topped with a batter made from flour, baking powder, butter, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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. Cook the chicken until tender.

  2. Season the chicken with salt.

  3. Place the chicken pieces flat in a stone baking dish.

  4. Make a gravy with the chicken broth.

  5. Pour some gravy over the chicken, leaving it uncovered.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Mix in the butter until well combined.

  3. Beat the egg and add it to the milk.

  4. Stir the mixture into the flour mixture.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter over the chicken.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 45 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the batter as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the batter and gives it a rich flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and helps it bake to a soft crumb.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the batter over the chicken. The batter must be spooned on rather than spread, so it bakes into soft dumplings on top of the chicken. Leaving the gravy uncovered lets the batter cook through while the filling stays moist.

“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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