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Chicken Pot-pie

A baked pie with chicken, ham, force-meat, eggs, and spices, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Pot-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.

Make the stock

  1. Combine chicken neck, legs, backbones, a little water, onion, savory herbs, and mace in a stew-pan.

  2. Stew for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the liquid; this will be used for gravy.

Assemble the pie

  1. Layer chicken, ham, force-meat, and hard-boiled egg rings in a pie dish.

  2. Season each layer with mace, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Pour in ½ cup of water.

  4. Border the dish with puff pastry, cover it, and decorate the top.

  5. Brush the top with egg yolk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 1.5 hours.

  2. Once done, pour the reserved gravy into the pie.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 savory flavor that the pie is built around.
Force-meat
Adds a dense, moist stuffing layer that holds the filling together.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the crust to promote even browning and a glossy finish.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, layered crust that encloses the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm texture and richness to the layered filling.

The step that matters

Brush the top with egg yolk. Egg yolk proteins brown and set on heat, so an even, thin coat gives the crust its golden color and gloss. Uneven or thick coating can cause pale or blotchy spots.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, ham, meat, egg, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, ham, meat, egg, nutmeg, 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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