Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Chicken Pot-pie

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

Boiled Chicken Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix flour, baking powder, lard, and salt with enough water to form a dough.

  2. Roll the dough and cut it into square pieces.

  3. Cut the chicken into joints and peel and quarter the potatoes.

Assemble and cook

  1. In a pot, layer chicken and potatoes, seasoning with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Add layers of dough squares on top until all ingredients are used, finishing with dough on top.

  3. Fill the pot with boiling water and boil for 2 hours.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the squares together while boiling.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the dough so it cooks softer rather than dense.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and keeps it from becoming tough.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and flavour that the broth carries into the dish.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the cooking liquid and makes the filling hearty.

The step that matters

Fill the pot with boiling water and boil for 2 hours. Starting with boiling water brings the pot up to heat quickly so the dough cooks through evenly. Keeping it at a steady boil for the full time lets the chicken become tender and the dough set rather than turn gummy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, chicken, pepper, butter. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes