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Chicken Pie

A savory pie with stewed chicken and oysters, topped with a buttery crust.

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

Prepare the chicken

  1. Stew the chicken until tender, seasoning with ½ cup butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Line a pie dish with a rich crust.

  3. Pour the stewed chicken into the lined pie dish.

  4. Cover loosely with another crust, cutting a hole in the center.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Heat the oyster liquor.

  2. Thicken the liquid with flour and water.

  3. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, and a 1 egg-sized piece of butter.

  4. When it boils, pour it over the oysters.

Finish the pie

  1. About 20 minutes before the pie is done, lift the top crust.

  2. Add the oysters to the 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

  4. Chicken + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together972 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the pie, becoming tender from slow stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the stewed chicken and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquor into a smooth sauce that clings to the filling.
Oysters
Give the pie its distinctive briny flavour and tender, savoury bite.
Pie crust
Forms the rich edible case that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the oyster liquor. Flour must be fully mixed with water before it meets the hot liquid, otherwise it clumps. Bringing the sauce to a full boil activates the starch so it thickens properly.

“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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