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Chicken Pot-pie

A savory pie made with shredded chicken, lima beans, stewed tomatoes, asparagus, and a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lima beans and asparagus share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Pot-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 until tender, then remove and shred the meat.

  2. In a pot, combine the chicken, Lima beans, stewed tomatoes, and asparagus.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and cover with the pie crust.

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

  3. Let cool slightly before serving.

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. Lima beans + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together20 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Lima beans + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + asparagustop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and meaty bulk of the filling.
Lima beans
Add starchy body and a creamy texture to the filling.
Stewed tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that flavor the filling.
Asparagus
Adds vegetable texture and a fresh, green flavor.
Pie crust
Forms the golden top that browns in the oven and encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Let cool slightly before serving. A hot filling is very runny and can spill when cut. Resting lets the starches in the thickened juices set so slices hold their shape.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, asparagus):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peasfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, asparagus. 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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