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Chicken Pie

A savory pie with boiled chicken, pork, onions, and a flaky suet crust, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Place the cut chickens in a pot with hot water to cover.

  2. Cook with the lid on for 1 to 3 hours until tender.

  3. Add the pork cut into squares, minced onion, salt, and half the pepper.

  4. Thicken the broth with flour mixed with a little milk.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, mince the suet finely, rub it into the flour, and add water to form a dough.

  2. Roll it out several times for a flaky texture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the sides of a deep baking pan with the crust, dip the chicken pieces in, and sprinkle the remaining pepper and a dusting of flour on top.

  2. Add butter and parsley, then pour in the chicken broth until just below the crust.

  3. Cover with remaining pie crust.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

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

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the broth and builds the structure of the crust.
Beef suet
Rich fat that keeps the crust tender and helps it flake.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth as it cooks.
Chickens
Provide the main meat, and their collagen enriches the broth.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling the crust. Rolling the dough several times builds layers of fat and dough that puff into flakes. Overworking can make the crust tough, so roll gently and keep the suet cold.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, butter, onion, pepper, flour, beef. 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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