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Old-fashioned Chicken Pot Pie

A pot pie made with chicken, potatoes, and a light bread dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Old-fashioned Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Prepare a light bread dough, shortening it with butter as you would for raised biscuits.

  2. Cut the hen into pieces suitable for fricassee.

  3. Stew the chicken pieces in water until nearly done, adding sliced potatoes if desired.

Assemble the pot pie

  1. Grease the sides of a smooth round-bottomed kettle with butter and line it with the dough, leaving the bottom without crust.

  2. Pour the stewed chicken into the kettle, seasoning with salt and a small piece of butter, ensuring there is plenty of gravy.

  3. Cut small inch-square pieces of dough and drop them into the stew.

  4. Roll out the remaining dough to biscuit thickness and cover the stew tightly.

Cook and serve

  1. Place a clean, dry cotton cloth over the top and then put on the lid.

  2. Cook over a gentle fire for 30 to 45 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately after removing the cover for a light and delicious pot pie.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Bread + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread dough
Forms the crust lining and dumplings, becoming light and tender when cooked in the stew.
Butter
Shortens the dough for tenderness and adds richness to the lining and gravy.
Hen
Provides the meat and rich cooking liquid that forms the gravy.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the stew and adds body to the filling.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and cook gently. A gentle heat and a tight seal keep the stew simmering without boiling dry or toughening the chicken, while the dough steams through to become light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, chicken. 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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