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 filling
Wash the chicken pieces and place them in a stew pan.
Season with salt and pepper, then add enough water to nearly cover the chicken.
Rub the butter into the flour and add it to the gravy when the chicken is cooked.
Let the mixture boil for a few minutes.
Assemble and bake
Line the sides of a pie dish with the prepared pie crust.
Place the chicken and half of the gravy into the pie dish.
Cover the pie with the remaining crust, leaving an opening in the center.
Decorate the top with crust cut into flowers or twisted bars.
Bake until the crust is golden brown, then remove from the oven.
Pour the remaining gravy into the pie before serving.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 protein and, as it cooks, the savory gravy that fills the pie.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor to the gravy and helps the crust brown.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that holds together inside the pie.
- Pie crust
- Forms the rich paste that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Rub the butter into the flour before adding it to the gravy. Coating the flour in fat keeps it from clumping when it meets hot liquid, so the gravy thickens smoothly. Boiling the mixture afterward fully activates the flour's thickening starch.
“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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