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Chicken Pie

A baked chicken pie with bacon, pepper, sea salt, parsley, flour gravy, and rich pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the chicken pieces in a baking dish.

  3. Season with bits of fried bacon, pepper, coarse sea salt, and chopped parsley.

Make the gravy

  1. Mix flour with water until smooth.

  2. Add the mixture to the chicken stock.

  3. Pour the gravy over the chicken.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the pie crust trimmings.

  2. Cover with a rich pie crust mixed with 2 beaten eggs.

  3. Bake until the chicken is cooked through and the crust is golden.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 protein, and its juices and fat enrich the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy as it heats.
Eggs
Bind the crust wash and help it turn glossy golden in the oven.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the chicken.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and bakes into a golden, structural top.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with water until smooth. Flour mixed with water until smooth disperses evenly, so it does not form lumps. As the gravy heats, the starch granules swell and thicken the liquid evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

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