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Chicken Pie

Chicken Pie is a baked dish of chicken pieces in gravy, topped with crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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

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 filling

  1. Cook the chicken pieces in water until half done, then remove them.

  2. In a bowl, mix pepper, salt, flour, and butter to create a rich gravy.

Assemble the pie

  1. Roll out the pie crust and line the sides of a pie dish, allowing it to extend over the edge.

  2. Cut narrow strips of crust and place them around the top edge of the pie.

  3. Add the chicken to the dish and fill it halfway with gravy, reserving some gravy for serving.

  4. If needed, mix more butter, flour, and seasoning, and add small pieces among the chicken with a bit of water.

  5. Cover the dish with a thick layer of crust, cutting a round piece from the center.

  6. Roll out additional crust, cut into eight leaf shapes, and place them decoratively on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake gradually at 350°F (175°C) until the crust is golden brown.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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 meat that makes up the body of the pie.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it holds together rather than running out of the pie.
Butter
Adds richness to the gravy and fat that helps the crust turn golden and tender.

The step that matters

Cook the chicken until half done. Chicken finishes cooking in the oven, so partially cooking it first helps it reach a safe temperature without drying out while the crust browns.

“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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