Name: Chicken Pie
Ingredients: 2 chickens, cut into pieces; 2 cups all-purpose flour; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 2 eggs; ½ cup butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; water from boiling chickens

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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Boil the chicken pieces until tender.
Make a rich crust by mixing flour, baking soda, eggs, and a little water.

Assemble and bake

Line the sides of a pie dish with the crust.
Layer the boiled chicken in the dish, sprinkling flour, salt, pepper, and butter between layers.
Add the water used for boiling the chicken to the dish.
Cover with more crust and bake for 1 to 1.5 hours at 400°F (200°C).

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Chickens: Provides the main filling, which becomes tender from boiling before baking.
All-purpose flour: Forms the structure of the crust and thickens the layers between the chicken.
Baking soda: Helps the crust rise and brown lightly as it bakes.
Eggs: Bind the crust dough and add richness and structure.
Butter: Adds fat for flavor and a tender, rich texture in the crust and filling.

“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.