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Chicken Pot Pie

A stew of chicken, potatoes, and dumplings made with bread dough and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Pot Pie

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. In a pot, cover the chicken pieces with boiling water and skim the surface.

  2. Simmer the chicken, covered, until tender, ensuring it does not boil dry.

Make the dumplings and potatoes

  1. Meanwhile, mix the bread dough with the butter and shape into small dumplings; let rise.

  2. Parboil the potatoes in salted water for 10 minutes, then add to the chicken when nearly done.

Cook and finish

  1. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

  2. When the potatoes begin to boil, add the dumplings and pour in the cold water or milk.

  3. Cover tightly and do not open the lid until the dumplings are cooked, which takes 20 to 80 minutes.

  4. Check doneness by breaking open a dumpling.

  5. For lighter dumplings, steam them separately from the chicken and potatoes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread dough
Forms the dumplings, which puff and become soft and airy as they rise and cook.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dumpling dough.
Potatoes
Add body and starch, thickening the broth slightly as they cook.
Chicken
Provides the main meaty flavour, which seasons the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Keep the lid closed while the dumplings cook. Lifting the lid lets steam escape, so the temperature drops and the dumplings can turn heavy or cook unevenly. Cover tightly and check doneness only at the end.

“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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