Why it works: Chicken and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓
Baked Chicken 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Butter a pie dish and line it with a thick pie crust.
Parboil the chicken for a short time, depending on its age.
Layer and bake
Layer the bottom of the dish with chicken pieces.
Add a layer of parboiled, sliced potatoes.
Season with salt, pepper, and bits of butter.
Repeat layering until all chicken is used.
Pour in the water from boiling the chicken.
Sprinkle a little flour on top.
Cover with a thick pie crust and make a slit in the middle.
Bake until the crust is golden brown.
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.
-
Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,756 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
-
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Provides the main meat, which is partly cooked by parboiling before baking.
- Potatoes
- Add starch and body, becoming tender layers that soak up the cooking liquid.
- Flour
- Sprinkled over the layers, it thickens the cooking liquid into a rich sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour and helps the top crust brown.
- Pie crust
- Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the outer shell.
The step that matters
Parboil the chicken for a short time. Parboiling only partly cooks the chicken and yields the broth used in the pie. Boiling too long leaves the meat dry and stringy after baking, so the time should match the bird's age.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, butter, flour):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Leekfits about as well
- Spinachfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter, flour. 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.
More chicken pie recipes
You might also like
Chicken Broth257 recipes
Potato Croquettes255 recipes
Chicken Soup156 recipes
Creamed Chicken89 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.