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Chicken Pie

A savory pie of stewed chicken and oysters in a buttery pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Stew the chicken until tender, seasoning with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Line the sides of a pie dish with pastry crust.

  3. Pour the stewed chicken into the pie dish.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Heat the oyster liquor, thicken with flour and water, and season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. When it comes to a boil, pour the oyster mixture over the oysters.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover loosely with pastry crust, cutting a hole in the center the size of a small teacup.

  2. About 20 minutes before the pie is done, lift the top crust and add the oysters.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

  4. Chicken + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together972 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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
Stewing makes it tender and provides the main body of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and a smooth mouthfeel to the filling.
Oysters
Provide the briny, savory flavor that defines the pie's filling.
Flour
Starch swells when heated with liquid, thickening the oyster liquor into a sauce.
Pastry crust
Encloses the filling and forms the golden, flaky top and sides of the pie.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters near the end. Oysters cook quickly and turn tough and shrunken if held too long in heat. Adding them about 20 minutes before the pie is done keeps them tender and plump.

“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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