Why it works: Chicken and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,258 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity. The science ↓
Old-fashioned Pot-pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken and gravy
Cut up the chickens and boil them in a deep pot until fully cooked.
Make a rich gravy while the chicken is cooking.
Make the dumplings
Prepare the bread dough and work in the shortening as you would for light rolls.
Shape the dough into rolls or dumplings and set aside to rise.
Cook and serve
About 30 minutes before serving, drop the dumplings into the pot with the chicken and gravy.
Cover the pot tightly and do not lift the lid until the dumplings are done, which takes about 30 minutes.
Serve immediately to prevent the dumplings from falling.
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.
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Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,258 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chickens
- Provide the main meat and flavour of the dish, cooked through by boiling.
- Bread dough
- Forms the soft, fluffy dumplings that cook in the gravy.
- Shortening
- Adds fat to the dough, tenderising it for a light, flaky texture.
- Gravy
- Supplies the rich liquid that surrounds the chicken and dumplings.
The step that matters
Do not lift the lid while the dumplings cook. Dumplings rise by trapping steam in a tightly covered pot. Lifting the lid releases steam and cooler air, so the dumplings can collapse and turn heavy.
“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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