Why it works: Flour and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 889 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
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 the filling
Cook the jointed chickens until tender.
Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.
Thicken the gravy with flour.
Assemble and bake
Make a crust for soda biscuits and line the sides of a pie dish with it, about ½ inch thick.
Fill the dish with the chicken and gravy, then cover with more crust.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.
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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Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together889 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together841 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Chickens
- Provide the meat that forms the main body of the filling.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy so it holds together around the chicken rather than running out.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the seasoned filling.
The step that matters
Thicken the gravy with flour. Flour must be cooked into the liquid to thicken it fully and avoid a raw, starchy taste or lumps. A gravy that stays thin will soak the crust and make the pie soggy when it is filled and baked.
“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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