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Chicken Pie

A baked chicken pie with a buttery roux sauce and a flour‑based batter topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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

  1. Cook the chicken until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. Remove the bones and place the chicken in a baking dish.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour to make a roux.

  4. Gradually add the broth and milk, stirring until smooth.

  5. Pour the sauce over the chicken in the baking dish.

Make the topping and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, shortening, egg, milk, and salt to make a batter.

  2. Spread the batter over the chicken and sauce.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as a roux and gives structure to the batter topping.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the topping rises and becomes light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory flavor and moisture.
Milk
Adds creaminess to the sauce and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Making the roux and sauce smooth. Flour must be cooked briefly in melted butter before liquid is added, and the broth and milk should be added gradually while stirring. This keeps lumps from forming and lets the starch thicken the sauce evenly.

“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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