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Chicken Pie

A savory pie with chicken, ham or bacon, forcemeat balls, hard boiled eggs, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut up the chickens and season with white pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  2. Layer the chickens, slices of ham or bacon, forcemeat balls, and hard boiled eggs alternately in a pie dish.

  3. Pour in a little water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

  2. Prepare gravy from veal or mutton, seasoned with herbs, onion, mace, and pepper, to serve with the pie.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chickens (in the method)
Form the main body of the pie, providing the meat that cooks through in the oven.
Ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour and fat that moistens the meat layers as they cook.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliced texture within the layered filling.
Veal or mutton
Provides the base for the gravy served alongside the pie, adding meaty flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white pepper, mace, nutmeg, ham, egg, veal):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white pepper, mace, nutmeg, ham, egg, veal. 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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